MovieChat Forums > The Double (2014) Discussion > What time period is this set in?

What time period is this set in?


It appears to be set in the past, yet they have crude technologies that exist in modern times. Everything is also very drab. Hardly any bright colors. I suppose this is be design as well, in keeping with the world that's portrayed.

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I asked myself the same question. The decor looks like an east German place before the fall of the wall or something like that, very dull. It looks old but they have some technology though. I think that it was purposely done this way, just to keep up with the uneasy feeling and the depressing ambiance. In gact the technology is weird/old and very ugly (TV, some computer) and the japanese music we hear accentuates the strange feeling.

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It's not in any time or place specifically, but it's pretty clear that the film is trying to evoke the mid-eighties in Britain. The space opera Simon watches has a "hip" New Romantic sound-track and looks a lot like Blakes 7, a (very cheap and cheesy) BBC space opera of the period. Costumes, hairstyles, the facial hair styles on the men (the eighties: a period when men still wore mustaches), the sets, technology and general ambiance is from that period.

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That's true for the "space opera" t.v. show, but there are many other references, visually and otherwise, to communist block countries from the early and mid 20th century. Along with that there are all the asian and euro pop songs from the 60's and also the multiple, different accents spoken by the various characters. Everything is hybrid and scrambled up - a kind of post-modern mish-mash that doesn't exist in any one time or place - all purposefully disorienting. It's kind of a parallel universe where the story exists on different levels.

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during the Japanese occupation

aka pmsdtjo

Tanoshinde kudasai

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5 years from right now.

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It seems to be a dystopian future or a "retro-future" like Terry Gilliam created in the brilliant film Brazil (1985). It's meant to invoke a bleak, creepy vibe that is somewhat reminiscent of our odd dreams (or nightmares) where modern realistic things are often combined with primitive unrealistic ones - much like in dreams that don't seem weird until we wake up from them.

As an example, the copy room scenes in The Double have the kind of complexity and surreality you would expect within a dream. In our current world, we can make a photocopy using a compact multifunctional machine that we simply set (directly or networked) for number of copies and to print automatically. In this film, the office scanner/printer must first be set with a clunky primitive dial and button to send a request for a number of copies. Then one must enter a room with workers that are needed to activate the request, while a bulky machine with large tubing is able to somehow produce the desired copy. If this scene was in a dream, the functionality would seem to make sense until the process was recognized as unrealistic upon waking. In a conscious state, this film presents a world where things are very familiar, but disturbingly at odds with our reality. That's why it succeeds at feeling so uncomfortable. I just wish the story was better.

Brazil was extremely successful at creating a creepy, "surreal-but-real" world in a vastly superior way to The Double. If you haven't seen it, I wholeheartedly recommend it. The film will likely leave you more satisfied with its story, while also being less ambiguous. It left me thinking about it for days.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846



"Don't get chumpatized!" - The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)

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Seems like an ambiguous amalgam of several eras.

Having an opinion can save your life. Just ask Marvin.

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It just looks like Eastern Europe I'm from Albania and it looks almost the same here

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