The Afflicted

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CHAT NOIR STUDIOS - A Kate Lee Film - Lizard as Terbing - Sailorknightwing as Palia - Music by sherwinliu This scifi-drama explores a future world in which strong emotions have been genetically eradicated, and humans have become efficient information processors. This is not a typical science fiction, as this movie takes its genre merely as a device to explore the counterfactual. The movie follows the scholar Terbing as he introduces us to his research, and interviews one of the subjects of his studies, Palia. Palia is afflicted by a disease: human emotion. Loosely based on an original unfinished short story by Kate Lee The poem excerpt read by Terbing to Treen in the library scene is from "She Walks in Beauty" by George Gordon, Lord Byron. The background music for that part is Chopin's waltz opus 34. ------------------------ EFAQ (Expected Frequently Asked Questions) In case you care.... by Kate Lee "My mistake": Why do these people talk funny? The language of 1st century PD. In 1st century PD, people do not say, "I am sorry." They say, "My mistake." This is a statement of a fact, rather than a feeling. Language changes with time. Of course the dialogues in this movie was written in English of 21st century AD. But consider them as translations. PostGenMod people in 1st century PD have their own way of talking. Most important for us is the fact that they lack emotional expressions. Hundreds years after emotion has been "bleached" through genetic engineering, these people lost emotional language because they were no longer in use. Learning these obsolete and archaic emotional terms and expressions were one of Palia's tasks as a participant of Terbing's project. The way she talks to Terbing shows she is an extremely assiduous and bright student of "emotion talk." Now, I could have let these people say, "I am sorry," and let that be a frozen expression that they use to mean "my mistake," not knowing its emotional origin. But then, I would not have an excuse to talk about the language change, which was one of the main motives of my original written story. What kind of cosmic disaster was there? I have to admit I do not have enough knowledge in astrophysics to give a plausible answer, but I imagine some sort of massive electromagnetic storm hitting our part of the galaxy. This corrupted most of the information stored in electronic devices such as computer (complicating the task of historians such as Terbing), and cuased malfuntions to sophisticated machineries. (So we don't have to see any annoying androids in this movie. :) ) There were also grand scale storms and climate changes accompanying the electromagnetic storm. What is ERD (Emotional Regulatory Dysfunction)? It is a genetic dysfunction that causes some individuals to show symptoms similar to emotion. There is quite a wide range of profiles in this dysfunction. Only some patients are categorized as the "preGenMod type" that resembles today's human emotion. Others may show much more serious and severe conditions. The preGenMod type ERD tends to have relatively late onset that is around mid-teenage years. The symptoms are mild and rare at the onset and gradually aggravates over one- or two-year period until they settle as a permanent condition. ERD in the postGenMod world. In 51 PD, we are not living in an extremely conformist society. Strange as it may sound, no emotion does not translate to no humanity. The state advises, but does not force, ERD patients to take a chemical therapy or neurointervention (a much more advanced form of today's brain surgery) as long as they do not cause troubles to others. For those who are judged to possess a certain amount of ability to reason on their own, the choice is theirs. Some ERD patients choose to undergo treatments while others decide to live with the symptoms. Mental Research Center Unit 4, where Terbing's has his research base, hosts the latter group of patients to study them and/or train them to function adequately in the society. ERD patients get disadvantages in their career and are expected to be closely monitored by the authority throughout their lives. That is why some patients hide their affliction as long as they can handle the pressure. Palia's erratic behavior. A young girl at age of 18 or so, who is desperately in love with someone she knows would not return her affection, may well show some erratic behaviors at one point or another. This is even more likely for a girl who grew up in postGenMod world, where people are not accustomed to the frustration of unreturned love and the impact of romantic feelings in general. Palia did not know how to handle the situation, due to her lack of exposure to this kind of circumstances that today's people are quite familiar with through direct or indirect experiences.

Category: Entertainment
Uploaded: March 6th, 2006 @ 7:40 pm
Author: sherwinliu

Length: 15:58
Rating: Whole StarWhole StarWhole StarWhole StarHalf Star
Views: 7,140

Tags: "the drama machinima movies" scifi

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