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The Fifth Element

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The Fifth Element: Out With the New, In With the Old

The Fifth Element (1997) is a science-fiction genre film with a huge sense of humor. Director Luc Besson has already established a career full of films similar to it, each with a mix of action, comedy, and romance (ie: Taxi, Nikita, Leon, etc.). The Fifth Element is not an exception, and the overarching scheme is the same: beautiful and perhaps exotic girl in trouble, a common, maybe even down-in-the-dumps lonely-guy ready to fight in order to impress the girl and to save the world from a great evil threatening the world (aptly named The Great Evil). It presents it all through a concoction of science-fiction clichés: aliens, space crafts, religion, automatism, and flying cars, with the …show more content…

The suggestion and representation of religion, particularly monotheist Western faiths, is strongest at the climax of the film: Leeloo saving the world. She is at the temple, distraught, injured (once again by technologically manufactured weapons) and exhausted, while the world is moments away from destruction. She says to Korben: “You humans act so strange. Everything you create is used to destroy.” How can she save a world that only strives for its own destruction? She does not understand why she even should save a world so hell-bent on extinguishing itself. To which Korben replies that he loves her, and miraculously her repulsion for the human behaviour she has witnessed, and experienced firsthand, vanishes and she saves them all after this epiphany. Essentially, one person’s love redeems the entire human race of their misdeeds and sins and all is …show more content…

Cornelius and Leeloo arrive at Korben’s apartment in regards to his tickets to Fhloston Paradise, and Korben hides Leeloo in the shower when the police are searching for him. When he brings her back out, she is soaked by the “auto-wash” and Korben profusely apologizes. He loudly rummages through a cupboard for a towel, still very much separate from Leeloo in his usual life of clutter and business, but after he has wrapped the towel around her and begins to dry her, his field of vision narrows drastically. All he sees is her. He drifts away from mindless chatter and instead gazes into her eyes, calmed by even just her presence. He forgets his

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