Sylvia Pozo

Bizarre, surreal…but if you look at the movie like a play, like a Shakespearean play—it may make it easier to understand. And to understand this movie, you need to go deeper into symbolism. What is the wasteland? Are the figures in white ghosts? Is the Governor a representation of government, and a tyrannical government at that? The scene of people holding the hands of the clock back is only a metaphor for suppressing time— roosters symbolic of a new day. Cage is the Hero who needs to save the girl, or is it to save the world? References to Orwell’s Animal Farm clarified it a lot for me. Unfortunately, most of today’s audiences have never read much classic literature that used symbolism, in Orwell’s case animals, to describe an oppressive government. As a matter of fact, they don’t read much at all. Nicolas Cage is great: funny, angry, dazed, and resolute. Watch this movie with an open mind to symbolism. You may realize that it’s about what’s going on now.