Was Andre right?
It's been nearly 25 years since My Dinner with Andre was released, and in it, Andre mentions some extremely pessimistic visions of the future: humanity would cease to exist (emotionally, at least), and we'd be nothing more than robots. Has that happened?
An argument could be made that in certain respects, yes, it has happened (I'm not going into a political discussion, only a comparison), because with the unthinking patriotic fervor after 9/11, American citizens, at least, simply followed the leader in a sort of robotic way--the difference is we felt something (pride in America, hatred toward the people who committed such a barbaric ["savage"] act) as opposed to nothing (in Andre's prediction). It could be said, though, in both ways, you're dead inside.
But certainly the pockets of light Andre spoke of have not come to pass (not if his words are taken literally), nor do I think they ever will. But there's an interesting foreshadowing going on: the graffiti on the subway train Wally takes can be seen as a sign of a collapsing, "savage" civilization, and the restaurant (and intellectual discussion) as a pocket of light. Also the political landscape at the time the film was made (Jimmy Carter was just going out of the White House, high unemployment and interest rates, the hostage crisis in Iran, etc) made for high uncertainty. It makes me wonder what the film would be like if it'd been made in the last couple of years.