THX 1138 (1971)

In his early days, George Lucas craftet the dystopian THX 1138, a film that is nice to watch because of how it (inadvertantly) reflects the time of its making, the free-wheelin' late sixties. Lucas' film may at times be silly - with its religious symbols and fear of  robots and tv:s - but what is more striking is the world it builds with a rather effective visual style that strips the story down in a way that lets the viewer understand how trapped the characters are in the totalitarian society in which they live. What we see bathes in a strange, white light. All environments are anonymous, stripped of everything human - what is revealed to be a sort of void. The place they live is an underground city. As in many of these sci-fi stories, everything 'personal' is forbidden. The regime tries to convert people into mechanical responses. Then there is of course the guy who tries to break free and of course there is also a love story that makes manifest that these creatures are real people, not a bundle of responses. Lucas is successful also when he toys with sounds. The dialogue is only half-heard, as if we hear everything through a thick befuddlement.