Chinatown has been a bit soured by the reputation of Roman Polanski. But its continued relevance and superb story does find a way to overcome that cringe.
It’s 2022, and some places in America are running out of water or simply don’t have any clean water. To someone who hasn’t been paying attention in recent years, this could come as a shock to them. But getting clean water to the people has always been a concerted effort involving the cooperation of society. If we want to live together in some semblance of civilization, we need to have access to water. Simply put.
Chinatown explores the corruption inherent in providing society with a basic human need. It is quite ridiculous that there is corruption surrounding something so essential, but that’s how some of our more scuzzy members of society operate. They see the easy way out and will stop at nothing to make it easy on them, subsequently making it harder for the rest of us. Controlling our utilities is their get-rich-quick scheme.
It seems rather obvious that things like water and electricity should be publicly owned since we all need it to properly thrive and function in the modern world. It is in everyone’s best interest to keep them regulated and appropriately priced. Though some people don’t see that being in their best interest, but those people are greedy and corrupt.
In this movie, John Huston’s character is one of those greedy and corrupt pirates who makes the simple things harder for the rest of us. He sees a basic necessity essential to modern human life and thinks, “I could make a killing in this.” And he literally does.
The fact that a city water commissioner is murdered for uncovering such a diabolical scheme may have seemed outlandish back in the ’70s (though it probably wasn’t), in today’s political landscape it feels like it’s to be expected. With massive droughts and other forms of climate change interfering with projected profits, human life has taken a backseat in the name of personal financial security. Private companies have made billions off things just the way they are, so why change it? Oh, the whole world is changing in spite of how we’ve had things set up? Tough!
Chinatown brings to mind that classic defeatist quote “You can’t fight City Hall.” That quote is only half-true. You can’t fight City Hall alone. Jack Nicholson’s character tries to figure it all out and solve the murder and corruption all on his own (which he does actually do), but how it’s all tied together is too massive for one guy to bring it all down. It’s a paradox of sorts, in which the thing that human beings have created has become too much to control. Humans built this society and made it so complex that now humans can’t do anything about it. At least, not on our own. We need to come together in new ways to figure out how we can fix the monster we helped create. If we don’t, we’re not going to have anything, least of all clean water.
This movie is a gripping story full of intrigue and surprise that keeps you guessing. It’s one of those uncomfortably true-to-life tales that totally could happen, and probably did in some form. The portrayal of the Asian characters in here is problematic, though. They are all servants caricatured in one stereotype or another, no doubt included to highlight the loose metaphor of Chinatown being some sort of lawless locale where you can get away with almost anything. Joshua understands the metaphor better. Go ask him.
But if you ever want to see how utilities are real estate are in bed with each other cheating us all out of our money and stability, this movie will help get you blood boiling.
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