The Cube. Is it just another metaphor for existence itself: I never asked to be here but now that I am what the fuck does it all mean? Either that or being “imprisoned”: In “what exactly?”
As for all the folks in here with me – why do they have to think and feel the way they do, and not the way I do. And what happens when we do get out? Are we really better off out instead of in?
And then, in any event, what is the right “attitude” to take about however we construe the situation to be?
And the existential element: you never quite know what is around the corner. Or, here, in the next room.
And [as always] that tricky relationship between whatever reality might actually be and whatever it is that we think [believe] that it might actually be.
You know, like in here.
Only in the cube one of them was actually in on its creation. Though not in the sense that they invented it or designed it. In other words, not in the sense that God designed or invented human existence. Everyone it seems is only so far up or so far down the food chain.
Summed up best perhaps this way:
Quentin: Why put people in it?
Worth: Because it’s here. You have to use it, or you admit it’s pointless.
Quentin: But it, it is pointless.
Worth: Quentin…that’s my point.
Look for the nihilist. And [of course] prime numbers.
IMDb
[b]Not only are the characters named after prisons but they reflect the prisons themselves. Example: Kazan (the mentally challenged character), in Russia is a disorganized prison. Rennes (the “mentor”) was a jail that pioneered many of today’s prison policies. Quentin (the detective) is known for its brutality. Holloway is a women’s prison, and Alderson is a prison where isolation is a common punishment. Leavenworth runs to a rigid set of rules (Leaven’s mathematics), and the new prison is corporately owned and built (Worth, hired as an architect).
Director Vincenzo Natali directed a follow-up short film in which we see what is outside the cube. Natali has made a solemn vow never to reveal what was outside the cube, and destroyed the video years ago.[/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film
trailer youtu.be/MY5PkidV1cM
CUBE [1997]
Written in part and directed by Vincenzo Natali
[b]Quentin: How many people are in this thing?
…
Quentin: Listen, we can’t go climbing around in here.
Holloway: Why not?
Quentin: There’s traps.
Holloway: What do you mean traps?
Quentin: Booby traps. I looked in the room down there, and something almost cut my head off.
…
Quentin: Does anybody remember how they got here?
…
Holloway: It’s like Chile. They always come in the middle of the night.
Quentin: Who?
Holloway: Only the goverment could build something this ugly.
Quentin: It ain’t government.
Holloway: Then what is it?
Quentin: I don’t know.
Holloway: Aliens.
…
Holloway: We have about 3 days without food and water before we are too weak to move.
Leaven: Well, they have to feed us, don’t they?
…
Holloway: Why would they throw innocent people in here? Are we being punished?
Leaven: I’ve never done anything to deserve this.
Quentin: Forget about all that! You can’t see the big picture from in here, so don’t try.[/b]
Sound familiar?
[b]Quentin: Let’s start with us. We got an escape artist and a cop. There’s gotta be a reason for that. You’re a doctor, Holloway. That gives you a function, a reason, right?
Holloway: No! It just makes me go, “Why me and not one of the other ten million doctors out there?”
…
Holloway: I think we have to ask the big questions! What does “it” want? What is “it” thinking?
Worth: “One down, four to go.”
…
Quentin: Why don’t you tell us what your purpose is, Worth?
Worth: Often wondered that myself. I’m just a guy, I work in an office building doing office building stuff. I wasn’t exactly bursting with joie de vivre before I got here, life just sucks in general.
Holloway: Oh I can’t stand that attitude.
Leaven: 'Cos he’s right.[/b]
Spotted the nihilist yet?
[b]Leaven [looking at the “room numbers”]: Prime numbers! I can’t believe I didn’t see it before!
…
Quentin: Somebody has to take responsibility around here.
Worth: And that somebody has to be you?
Quentin: Not all of us have the luxury of playing nihilist.
Worth: Not all of us are conceited enough to play hero.
Quentin [growing increasingly angry]: This is a will to live. Everybody’s got it, Worth, even you. Especially you! Hiding behind that cynical front.
Worth: A will to live. That’s the warm, cozy feeling deep inside? Thanks, Quentin, I’m a new man.
Quentin: Oh. Poor Worth. Nobody loves me. If that’s the chip on your shoulder, why did you lug it all this way? Why didn’t you just lie down and die?
…
Worth: You think we matter? We don’t.
Quentin: Put us out of your misery so we can get on with getting out of here!
Worth: Oh, you’re not getting out of here.
Quentin: Yes, we are.
Worth: No, you’re not.
Quentin: Yes, we are!
Worth [shouting furiously] There is no way out of here!
Quentin [suddenly realizing Worth knows more than he’s telling them]: Gotcha.
Holloway [shocked]: How do you know that?
Quentin: Answer the question, Worth.
Holloway: Oh, God.
Quentin: Who are you?
Worth: I’m the poison. I designed the outer shell.
…
Holloway [speculating on what is behind Worth’s “sarcophagus”]: It’s all the same machine, right? The Pentagon, multinational corporations, the police. If you do one little job, you build a widget in Saskatoon, and the next thing you know, it’s two miles under the desert, the essential component of a death machine. I was right! All along, my whole life, I knew it! I told you, Quentin. Nobody’s ever going to call me paranoid again! We’ve gotta get out of here and blow the lid off this thing!
Worth: Holloway, you don’t get it.
Holloway: Then help me, please. I need to know!
Worth: This may be hard for you to understand, but there is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It, it’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is not watching you.
Holloway: What kind of fuckin’ explanation is that?
Worth: It’s the best you are gonna get. I looked, and the only conclusion I could come to is that there is nobody up there.
Quentin: Somebody had to say yes to this thing.
Worth: What thing? Only we know what it is. [/b]
Me, I’m backing Holloway.
[b]Worth: I mean, somebody might have known sometime before they were gone, they got fired, or voted out, or sold it, but if this place ever had a purpose, it got miscommunicated, or lost in a shuffle. I mean, this is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project. Do you think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a clear conscience, and a fat paycheck.
…
Quentin: But why put people in it?
Worth: Because it’s here. You have to use it, or you admit it’s pointless.
Quentin: But it, it is pointless.
Worth: Quentin… that’s my point.
Holloway: What have we come to? It’s so much worse than I thought.
Worth: Not really. Just more pathetic.
…
Worth: We’re both part of the same system. I drew a box, you walk a beat. It’s like you said, Quentin, is keep your head down, keep it simple, just look at what’s in front of you. I mean, nobody wants to see the big picture. Life’s too complicated. I mean, let’s face it, the reason we’re here is that it’s out of control.
…
Leaven: Ok. The biggest the cube can be then is…26 rooms high, 26 rooms across, so…17,576 rooms.
Holloway: Seventeen thousand, five hundred and seventy-six rooms?!
Leaven [thinking]: Descartes! Cartesian coordinates. Of course, coded cartesian coordinates. They’re used in geometry to plot points on a dimensional graph. These numbers are markers, and grid reference, like latitude and longitude on a map. The numbers tell us where we are inside the cube.
…
Quentin [after deliberately letting go of Holloway]: She…slipped…
…
Worth: Hey! Listen to what I’m saying. There was a room there before. We haven’t been moving in circles, the rooms have.
…
Leaven: This room moves to 0, 1, and -1 on the X-axis, 2, 5, and -7 on the Y and 1, -1, and 0 on zed.
…
Leaven: At first, I thought that they were identified by prime numbers, but they are not. They are identified by numbers that are the power of a prime.
Worth: Can you calculate that?
Leaven: The numbers are huge. Maybe if I had a computer.
Quentin: You don’t need a computer.
Leaven: Yes I do.
Quentin: Figure it out! I’m not dying in a fucking rat maze!
Leaven: Look. Nobody in the whole world could do it mentally. Look at the numbers…567, 898, 545 There’s no way I can factor that! I can’t even start on 567! It’s astronomical! [/b]
Enter Kazan: the autistic-savant.
[b]Leaven: So, guess what? This is the room we started in. I was right. We should never have moved in the first place.
Worth: The bridge…
…
Leaven [reaching the exit of the cube]: What are you doing? You can’t quit now. It’s not your fault!
Worth: I have nothing to live for out there.
Leaven: What is out there?
Worth: Boundless human stupidity.
Leaven: I can live with that.[/b]
But only one makes it out alive. And it’s not her.