Equilibrium
Kurt Wimmer, 2002
In Equilibrium, citizens of Libria- where art, music and literature are illegal- are forbidden to have any emotional expressions. Everything in the whole society is under a severe surveillance of Tetragrammaton Council. They are willing to create identical lives for citizens and control their emotions with daily dose of Prozium which is an emotion numbing drug. The matter of emotion is the most important fact that drives the story of the movie. Therefore there are certain color themes chosen for different situation regarding the emotions which are perfectly supporting the aim of the film.
Manipulating the visual perception with the transition between warm and cold color tones is employed extensively by Kurt Wimmer. The color theme chosen for the emotionless city of Libria is a palette of cold colors while everything related to emotion, nature and art comes with powerful warm tones. In the emotionless and colorless city of Libria, people are all dressed in black and different tones of gray in an identical way. Apartments are blank with only few essential furniture and no decoration, carpet, wallpaper and color. The cold palette used to describe the Libria, reveals the lack of spirit and life which is forced by government into the citizen’s lives. It shows that imagination, nature and senses are all dead within this purified stoned society. The unnatural, rational, Lifeless and unsaturated quality of life in Libria is expressed by the cold color tones.
But there is an underground movement happening in this spiritless and cold society which is led by the sense offenders who are committing a crime by having feelings. The color theme alters from cold to warm tone where a glimpse of emotion, love and life and freedom enters the film. The self offender’s world and their senses are full of color - paintings, books and music - even the lighting in the scenes related to them are warmer. Everything and everyplace that is hidden and is away from Libria’s subtle control, and have signs of life in it, is filled with the warm tone of colors. The transition between these two color themes is widely obvious in Preston’s life. His house, like any other house in Libria and all the scenes related to him are covered in grays and blues. But as soon as he began to feel and is ready to see the world uncovered, the rays of warmth enters the scene. The reality is presented by warm and natural colors to the viewers. When he rips his room’s window cover and began to see and feel without the effect of emotion control drugs, his rooms fills with warm colors.
The dramatically contrast between the two color themes used in the film – from gray and blue to red, orange and yellow – is manipulating the visual senses of audiences of what is emotional and what is lifeless.