Leaving our gadgets behind

A massive gas tanker inexplicably runs aground on a popular beach. 

Planes start falling out of the sky and crash for no reason. 

A long line of self-driving Teslas smash into one another on a main road. 

A woman on the side of the road, who can only speak Spanish, hysterically tries to get help but is left to fend for herself. 

And a desperate father with a sick son helplessly admits that without his GPS and cell phone, he is useless. 

As difficult as it may be to accept, the hard truths explored in the movie Leave the World Behind focus on issues which hit very much close to home. 

In fact, it is probably because the plot is so uncomfortably plausible that many viewers were saying they didn’t like the film, didn’t understand the ending, and declared it ‘a waste of time’. 

I’ve often noticed this in mainstream audiences which prefer their stories to be easy to grasp and for the ending to be tied up in a neat little bow. The good guys always win, good triumphs over evil, the guy gets his girl, and everyone lives happily ever after. And, fair enough, there are times when I too prefer to watch something light and straightforward, to transport me to another dimension and detox from the heaviness of the world’s problems and dilemmas. But this is simply not that kind of film. 

This is more reminiscent of episodes of Black Mirror which deal exclusively with the theme of the near future when technology might be pushed too far, and the ensuing mishaps. In Leave the World Behind, we are shown what happens when things go wrong with our technology-obsessed world and we are forced to deal with each other, stripped off all our gadgets. 

As someone who relies heavily on them myself, the film was a sobering wakeup call and gave me pause for thought… what would happen if a cyber-attack dismantles all our Wifi, satellite and internet connections? For all the convenience it has given us, it is only when we are cut off that we actually realise the extent of our dependency and our often-unhealthy relationship with technology. We can have everything at our fingertips one minute and then suddenly - nothing. 

I do not want to give too much away for those who haven’t watched it, but it is an interesting, thought-provoking take on how we have gradually eroded our own ability to trust one another, how strangers are automatically perceived as threats and how nature is viewed with alarm rather than realising that it is trying to tell us something. It also poses the existential question of what would happen if things go sidewise in this world and an outside force launches an attack: Would we help our neighbours or will it be every man/woman for themselves resulting in an internal battle, a civil war, as the country turns against itself? 

When the world doesn’t make sense any more, I wonder whether we will seek comfort and solace from our own families and fellow human beings, or whether (like the socially detached little girl in the movie) we will resort to a beloved sitcom to be our ‘comfort food’, soothing us with its familiarity and reassuring us with fictional characters who have become more meaningful to us than those around us. The movie shows us how easy it is for us to turn on each other when the chips are down, how racism, class differences and intolerance immediately rise to the surface, and how quickly we begin to point fingers and blame unknown forces without any concrete proof or facts. Speculation, suspicion, conjecture is all fuelled by destabilisation and uncertainty. 

We’ve already had a practice run of this situation with COVID and the lockdowns, when we all became isolated, jittery and introverted, only sticking to our own families because contact with strangers was to be feared. As everything shut down and our freedom of movement was severely curtailed, there was even the fear that the virus was man-made and that this was a deliberate, elaborate plan by governments and big pharma to control global populations. There were those who would not believe the science but passionately and fiercely believed some random theory spouted on Facebook. The refusal to take the vaccine became the focus of a never-ending debate which still continues today, over three years later. On the plus side, it was also a time when people had time to slow down and re-connect with their loved ones. Yet, in retrospect, I doubt we really learned all that much from it. 

We quickly returned to our old ways of too much consumption and too much spending. We still make each other sick rather than staying home to avoid spreading germs. Those in authority still insist on butchering nature on the pretext of “renovating village squares” rather than protecting each precious tree which we so badly need for our physical and mental health wellbeing. And even as, this very week, nearly 200 nations meeting in Dubai approved a first-ever call for the world to transition away from fossil fuels, a decision which sounds great on paper… the question begs itself …what is Malta actually doing, in concrete terms? 

I don’t want to sound like the Christmas Grinch but, this year, the sheer amount of festive lights in our streets, showrooms and shops and the over-the-top decorating of some people’s homes, sucking up all that electricity, is in direct contradiction to this pledge. Energy crisis? What energy crisis? I’m surprised airplanes are not mistaking some of the roads for an airport runway. You can tell that Malta has electricity subsidies because surely if we were paying as much as in other parts of Europe, there would not be so much razzle dazzle. 

It just doesn’t seem like we are ready to tone anything down to really do something meaningful about this planet. Paying lip service at international fora just does not cut it when the Maltese government has not implemented any real measures to cut down on fuel emissions by reducing car use. Will any political party promise to make using one’s private car more prohibitive and expensive (while providing a reliable, efficient public transport system)?  I have never heard any real viable solutions from anyone because God forbid people stop buying more cars. And, no, a metro is not the answer because the last thing we need is more digging up of roads –  just look at the mayhem being caused by the Pembroke roadworks, to name one area. 

I realise I have digressed but films like Leave the World Behind inevitably take you off on a tangent and you start seeing how everything is ultimately connected. It also leaves you with a lot of questions (which is perhaps why viewers have been left frustrated by how it ends), yet that too is symbolic of this world we are living in, where there are no easy answers or magic potions to rectify the damage that human beings have caused to the planet.