BY SERA ULUSOY (MAN/IV) sera.ulusoy@ug.bilkent.edu.tr
There are some movies that attract me with their content—they may have a very “unknown” cast, they may be relatively low budget, but somehow the theme is enough to make you want to watch the film. Last Sunday, I came across one of those movies, “The Purge: Anarchy,” on Apple TV, and my brother urged me to watch it with him. For those of you who may not know, “The Purge: Anarchy” is actually the sequel to another “Purge” installment, starring Ethan Hawke as the protagonist, who happens to suffer very brutal treatment at the hands of the “purgers” throughout the entire movie. The initial installment revolves around our protagonist and his family, who try to survive through the night of “the Purge.” The sequel, however, does not revolve around one particular family, but instead looks at the entire society, and lets us know more about why this thing called “the Purge” is not as good as it initially seems to be.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie yet and could get irritated by spoilers—who wouldn’t?—I advise you not to continue reading. I may accidentally give out some spoilers—not major ones, but a few things that might interfere with the enjoyment you would have had watching the movie had you not read this column first.
Before I move on to my comments with regard to whether the sequel or the original was better, I’d like to tell you about the premise of the movie. It is set in the relatively near future, in the year 2023. The incidents all take place in the USA—a supposedly much better USA, with a very low crime rate and a very low poverty level. It is stated at the very beginning of the movie that the gap between the rich and the poor is closing a bit more every year. It all sounds fine until they attribute the “welfare” of society to a particular night called “the Purge.” This takes place once every twelve months, and it is, basically, a night when you can do anything—from killing innocent people, to stealing, to vandalizing the streets, to raping—and not get any punishment for all the horrible, disgusting things that you do. The New Founding Fathers of the States are pretty supportive of this annual event, and claim that it is because of this night that crime rates are lower, as people are allowed to “purge” as much as they want to with no limitations, hence making them much calmer and supposedly more united the other 364 days of the year.
However, they neglect to tell you this teeny, tiny detail: the reason that the poverty rate is getting much lower has to do with this event as well. How? Well, we see at the very beginning of the movie that there is a group led by this Carmelo guy. They call themselves the anti-purgers—they actually purge as well, but their targets are the wealthy purgers, who literally play a hunting game with their prey, by bidding to kill the “poor” people they drag out of their homes or find on the streets. Anyway, Carmelo makes a very reasonable and valid point; he notes that while it is true that anyone can purge, it is almost always the poor who are being hunted, hence the lower poverty rate.
This is dependent on one thing in particular: those who can afford to protect themselves by investing in high-tech equipment to guard their houses, cars and so on never get purged, as it is very difficult for this to happen. Those who cannot afford such protection make up most of those who are murdered. I should mention, as well, that you can use any sort of weapon except for certain military equipment that is quite inaccessible, such as nuclear weapons—I mean, yeah, that makes sense. As a person who has no real knowledge of guns and weapons, I must say that I am not familiar with the types of weapons used during the Purge night; however, I know that you can use any type of rifle, and those machine guns that shoot multiple bullets at a time. Hence, in some cases, even seemingly high-tech protection is not enough to keep you safe—so imagine the plight of those who are left to deal with the purgers on their own, using methods such as covering their windows with wood or putting a wardrobe against the door so that the purgers cannot access their apartment as easily.
The movie, as I mentioned above, mostly focuses on why this night is not actually as beneficial for the country as its “founding fathers” and supporters make it sound like. Sure, it is very effective, but every year the poor get slaughtered by the wealthy hunters—doesn’t it remind you of “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell?— and even by the government; yes, you read it right, the New Founding Fathers are not so good after all.
I enjoyed the sequel much more than the film that preceded it. The first movie was good as well, but it did not intrigue me as much, mainly because it did not include “society” as much. Also, it was more violent than the sequel; this may be just my opinion, though. Hence, I would recommend the second one instead of the first; of course, you may want to watch both if you have time.
I also read that there is going to be a prequel, which will be released in the summer of 2015—the first two were released in the summers of 2013 and 2014 respectively. The prequel, as the name implies, will focus on the origins of the Purge, as in why it started in the first place and who came up with the “very sophisticated” idea for this night of mayhem—which, according to the writers, began in the year 2017. Not so far away now, is it?