Forget the red state-blue state stuff -- Sky Blue, a Korean animated feature set in 2142, paints a much more drastic picture of a divided world.
In Sky Blue, what's left of the human population lives in two cities: Ecoban, a technological paradise that's sheltered from the viciously toxic environment, and Marr, a wasteland populated by refugees seeking shelter.
Ecobanians breathe fresh oxygen beneath a sealed dome; Marrians duck acid rain.
Ecoban, which was designed after the Earth's ecological collapse, is powered by a radical fuel source: air pollution. But what will happen to Ecoban when the pollution runs out? Are the Ecobanians desperate enough to destroy Marr, just to dirty the air?
Sky Blue, which was released in different form in Asia and Europe as Wonderful Days, is a smart, sincere, medium-octane piece of dystopic sci-fi.
There's plenty to snark at -- the voice actors sound like soap opera dropouts and the dialogue is thick with clichés ("Over my dead body!" "Well, if you insist."). The rules that govern the Ecoban universe are sketchy, and we don't get a clear sense of either the privations of the Marrians or the privileged lives of those in Ecoban.
And since the film never quite describes how Ecoban operates, the film's ending is a head-scratcher.
Still, Sky Blue makes emotional sense, thanks to a quality lacking in too much sci-fi -- it's straightforward. The film, originally directed by Moon-saeng Kim (Sunmin Park oversaw the American update), sidesteps most pretentious moments, and the movie rarely shows off or meanders.
The Sky Blue story is woven around two long-lost childhood friends. Shua, for reasons not completely clear, was once forced to flee Ecoban. Now he's trying to hack the city's operating system before it obliterates Marr.
Shua's former gal pal Jay, a government agent, assumes that Shua's dead; she mourns for him while supporting Ecoban's police state.
Sky Blue's political stance is clear: A group of technological elites is selfishly plundering and enslaving another territory. But the film's creative team doesn't push the politics -- the material is there for any Marxists who might want to extract it.
Sky Blue features a colorful cast of supporting characters -- black marketers, the wheelchair-bound chief of a rebel group, a blue-haired blind girl, along with Jay's boss and lover Cabe and a villainous Ecobanian leader.
But the star of Sky Blue is its design, which combines CGI, modeling and traditional cel animation. Admittedly, the mesh of styles doesn't always work (I thought of Hanna-Barbera a few times -- not a good sign) but there's no doubt that Kim is a gifted visual storyteller.
He fills his frame with rich detail and employs a subtle, powerful palette -- muted slate, rust and earth tones. Sky Blue's landscapes more than compensate for the sometimes muddled script, telling the film's story better than Kim's dialogue does.
In terms of emotional impact, Sky Blue chooses its moments. The first encounter between Shua and Jay is quiet and startling: The two chase each other through a museum, and Jay handcuffs Shua and points a gun at his head. That's when she realizes who he is -- it's a communion of sorts, with the rich blues and yellows of a stained-glass window glowing in the background.
The film's finale, which unfolds in zero gravity, is even more memorable. Jay's blood gently floats through the air as Shua and Cade fight over the fate of Ecoban.
In a lesser film, the climax might have featured swelling, triumphal music; Sky Blue is savvy enough to use a mournful, measured score.
As the skies clear, and the Marrians grab their first glimpse of sunshine, we hear what sounds like a dirge. Surviving a century of ecological and human disaster somehow doesn't feel like cause for celebration.
