Her. Dir. Spike Jonze. Perf. Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, and Amy Adams. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2013. DVD.
I’ve recently watched Spike Jonze’s movie Her , trying to approach it from an environmentally focused perspective. At first I thought it was a visually stunning film with pseudo sci-fi undertones, but after watching it with the environment in mind, it became something else entirely. I initially understood the film to be a somewhat sappy love story, but after I got past that I started noticing how nature and environmental spaces are represented in Jonze’s futuristic world. Jonze spliced architecture from Shanghai into existing landscapes of contemporary Los Angeles, creating a world that is both familiar and distant. I enjoyed how the film lingers between being realistic and cautionary in respect to technology becoming the standard medium for human connections, but Jonze’s world also echoes contemporary environmental problems and shows the potential outcome of ignoring our existing environment. Nature is pushed to the background in most instances of the film, if it’s represented at all.
After watching the movie a couple of times I noticed that nature is represented in two ways: as either a constructed, manicured space that’s been filtered through technology, or as a respite in which the main character allows himself to feel happiness and peace. For example, nature is seen very rarely in it’s “natural” un-manicured state i.e. virtual caves seen in video games, small rooftop gardens with plastic domes and benches, and a pervasive layer of smog that creates a beautiful, yet harmful, haze over the city, creating the cities “natural” state as constantly polluted. These instances of nature are brief and intensify the main characters bleak attitude towards his life (his pending divorce is the catalyst for his depression). Although nature is pushed to the side in favor for technology, the main character’s highest point of happiness occurs when he takes a vacation into a remote, snow filled forest. While he stays in a cabin in the woods, he is at his happiest. I like how the film subtly contrasts an urban, technologically enveloped city-scape with fleeting, natural spaces. I don’t want to include too much so I don’t spoil the movie overall, but I think the movie brings up a lot of really interesting questions about the relationship between technology, society, and natural spaces.
