The 1958 film “The Fly” was
certainly an exciting movie. It started off with a good deal of mystery (why in
the world would someone kill her husband with no motives?), then went off into
excitement, and finally, horror, as said husband is revealed to have turned
into a fly. It ends with a gruesome picture you find hard to forget – the mutated
fly with a human’s head screaming “help me” as it is about to die.
So yes, if you are a fan of creepy
things, you will definitely like the film. And if you’re not, well, you won’t
get bored.
Aside from being entertaining, the
film tackles several important themes. While it’s technically not a morality
play (this would involve the characters symbolizing certain virtues, and all
the characters here seemed pretty human), morality does come into question. In
fact morality gets mixed up altogether, as we try to figure out whether killing
a half-human, half-fly, is a bad thing or not. And behind all that is the big
question: are we taking science too far?
The question was a relevant one for
the 1950’s. It was the decade when the hydrogen bomb was being developed – a bomb
that could level entire cities. To the people back then, it really must have seemed
like scientists were going too far.
But the film never portrays the
scientist this way. The scientist and main character is seen to be a kind and
caring person, someone who is only trying to do good, and even end famines. In
the end they tell his son that he died searching for the truth, which isn’t a
bad-sounding way to go.
So in conclusion, we get that
science is immensely powerful and dangerous. As for the scientists – they
should always check for bugs.
- Clare Tan
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