Future by Design (2006)

This is an interesting film, it's a documentary on the architect/social engineer/inventor Jacques Fresco, whom until I downloaded this movie, I'd never heard of. To give you a rundown of his accomplishments, he's invented/improved nearly as many things as Da Vinci, he met Albert Einstein and was unimpressed, he flew planes in WWII, he designed one of the first mass production-style houses (aka what would later be overlooked in the use of mobile homes/trailers), and to this day, at like 90 years old, he still draws/designs ways to change the world.

The documentary itself is pretty straightforward, there's nothing spectacular in form here, in fact, this might even suffer because it's a documentary, and to truly experience Fresco's life, you'd either have to live it with him, or chronicle all his accomplishments and designs in a 12 hour miniseries.

What makes Fresco so unique as a Futurist is that he doesn't design things FOR the future. He designs the future itself. For example, he explains that there is no way to save the US they way it is now, to go back and attempt to rebuild the major cities through patchwork would be impossible. He explains you need to start anew, and build an entire city at once, and he has designs for it. Once you listen to his theories, everything he says makes sense, and it's like he's solved the problems of human suffering. You begin to wonder why more people don't listen to this guy, but the problem is his ideas are idealist, his inventions, transportation systems, and living situations would only work if people weren't conditioned to be greedy and to look at life through monetary values.

He goes on to explain that what changed his thinking was when he arrived in Tahiti in the early 40's, he was offered the Cheif of the tribe's wife and told that she gives the Chief much pleasure, maybe she could do the same for him. It changed his thinking because he discovered that these people weren't conditioned to covet and want, they merely existed, and looked to share the things they had and the good life they led. The problem with America, he discovered, is people from their birth, are taught to covet and to take and to need. If we were able to change this thinking, and from birth condition people to share such things as land, lifestyle, food, power, etc then there wouldn't be a need for money, or a monetary system.

He also talks about how absolutely ridiculous and stupid it is that there are people who have millions of dollars, houses they don't ever set foot in, and cars they never drive, yet there are people dying of hunger every day. Clearly, there is enough food to go around, but the greedy people that see value in status and wealth completely ruin this fact that everyone on the planet earth could be eating right now. But thanks to Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and other people like them, there are people dying every day. Really just a mind boggling human being, there is so much to be learned from Jacques Fresco, it's a wonder and at the same time a testament to humankind's stupidity that such a man could exist, but never be listened to.

9.1/10