There is no gene for faith

The during the discussion about Fight Club some elements rose up that reminded me of another of my favourite films, or a film that like previous one, has made a strong impresion to me. I started to wonder the characters and the story in this particular film, and how I could compare it to Fight Club or to Demian possibly.
This is an underrated film called Gattaca, from 1997. Story takes place in near future, where children are conceived by genetic manipulation, to create a perfect human. Natural born humans are now a new underclass. Its a story about Vincent who fights against the future predicted for him, from his genes. Gattaca is a basic tale of one mans fight over unbelievable obstacles. So nothing new.

The Lead character Vincent has "invalid genes" and to reach his goals he has to become Jerome Morrow, a good gened guy with bad luck. He buys his personality. He becomes a so called "de-gene-rate", which is illegal of course.
In the world of Gattaca, where genes mean everything, the most unclean, and intimate things, which humans usually don´t exchange with each other, things that might be regarded as dirty, or the Abject maybe, are now the most precious and expensive things and things that matter the most. A big part of becomin Jerome is that Vincent must leave behind traces of the good genes. Humas loose all the time hair, spit, skin, things that all hold the persons individual gene in them. Vincent practically buys Jeromes blood and piss. (because the frequent blood and piss test).
In Gattaca humans personality is diminished to genes. If your blood is good enough, no one cares about anything else. when Vincent and Jerome meet and they don´t look anything alike, but the middleman says that "it is close enough! when was the last time you´ve seen anyone looking at a picture" or something.So now, an outcast man want´s to dive deep in the wrong-gone society and be one of the elite, but being an outcast he has to become some one else. Where in fight club, getting out, becoming an outsider, meant becoming someone else. So the direction is opposite from Fight Club.

The question of individual and personality in proportion to society and its expections and limitations is obvious.

Vincent: I can't go anywhere without seeing my own face. They'll recognize me.
Jerome: They won't recognize you.
Vincent: They'll recognize me.
Jerome: I don't recognize you.

It could be argued that Gattaca shows us what most of us are doing in real life. We have weird imaginations and expectations of our selves and what we should do with our lives, like Vincent has, he wants to go to space, and thats it, no explanations.

In order to attain these goals, like a good job or a career, the society around us gives us no choice but to leave our natural selves behind and become something else. We all must be better, cleaner, more intelligent and more good looking. We must be productive and happy. We willingly do unnatural acts to become these roles we have imagined for our selves. Because we think, or are made to think that we aren´t enough we have to be like society wants us to be, to reach happines or whatever.

Still, Gattaca shows us a hopeful view that anything can be done, but also shows the cost of it. Everything Vincent does, is for his career in space. Is that a good thing?There are 2 men in a really close relationship, which is not approved by surrounding society. And there is the one woman in the middle of them. The relationship between Vincent, Jerome and Irene is somewhat similar to the relationship of the Narrator, Tyler and Marla in Fight Club. Irene is in love with Vincet, but for her he is Jerome, much like narrator is Tyler for Marla. So Irene is in love with the "imagined" person of Jerome Morrow, which is not real, like Tyler isn´t. Of course Vincent can never discuss Jerome with Irene, like in FC "never talk about me" says Tyler.

This arrangement is not the main focus of the movie, but its still clearly there. When the process is reaching its end, the real Jerome kills himself, leaving only the secretion bags for Vincent to last the rest of his life. And when the real Jerome disappears from the world, Vincents identity is also finally destroyed and replaced by Jeromes, by a push of a button. The rebuilding of ones personality is complete, and there is no coming back.

Vincent: [voiceover] For someone who was never meant for this world, I must confess I'm suddenly having a hard time leaving it. Of course, they say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I'm not leaving... maybe I'm going home.

In the movie Vincent has just reached his goal, but having second thoughts, cause he has now conveniently stepped to the life of a "valid", but fortunately he still remembers that his main goal was not getting in to a society of elite-people, but to use it to fly away from it.

So compared to Demian, where a bird must break the shell around it to break free, in Gattaca Vincent had to first built one, then be shipped in it to freedom. :)

A person from the dark world works his way up to the clean and desired world. Element similar to Fight Club are: society that gives the boundaries to fight against, 2 guys in a close uncommon relationship one being the unwanted starting point and the other the goal or the desire, the personality game, the process in which one becomes something new, a synthesis of 2 different factors, and maybe the Soap thing, if it is interpreted that way of the fat that it is made of is now being used to the goals of the characters, like here the real leftovers from human are precious for our main character.Im going to totally set aside the fact that this movie deals with gene manipulation and makes a strong statement about it.

There is the question of brothers in Gattaca. Vincent is a "child of love" a product of passion where is younger, better brother is carefully planned and properly produced child.
Brother becomes a cop who tracks down a killer, who he suspects is Vincent. So this is a kind of Kain and Abel tale, which brings us to Demian and to the Bible of course.
"The mark of Kain" is the mark of Vincent being an "invalid". But it is also the mark from Demians interpretation, mark of desire, power and determination.

Water and swimming play a big part in Gattaca, to be honest, I really don´t know what that is about. The 2 brothers compete by swimming, yes, but they could do it running I guess.. Except being in water is like being in space, there is no way out, you can´t just stop swimming and walk away, you have to swim, or you die. We all swim in the current situation we are in. We can´t stop it if we want to survive.. Maybe that´s the point? Anyways, it is the part that made an affect on me when I saw it the first time. Swimming scenes with the beautiful music score. Check it out.