In a new YouTube video, Nerdkultur’s Marco talks about the sci-fi epic “The Fifth Element” and explains what makes this film a masterpiece.
Who is Marco Risch? Marco Risch has been uploading videos with news, reviews, analyzes and interviews about current films, series and video games to his YouTube channel Nerdkultur since 2015.
In his podcast Nerd & Culture every Sunday he chats with his colleague Yves Arievich about topics like Star Wars, Marvel and DC. Both are part of the Webedia network, of which MeinMMO is also a part.
In a new video, Marco talks about The Fifth Element, a film from 1997 that somehow seems like it was written by a child and that’s exactly what scores points:
Afterwards you will see The Fifth Element with different eyes
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What makes this film so special? One point that Marco mentions at the beginning of his video is the production country of The Fifth Element. Despite the Hollywood cast and really impressive production, this film is not a Hollywood blockbuster, as one might expect.
The Fifth Element is a French production by Luc Besson. Besson even wrote the story while he was still at school at the age of 16. After his surprise hit Léon – The Professional, he then found investors to make his childhood dream come true and set up The Fifth Element.
And with this film, two records were broken: with an estimated cost of $93 million, it was the most expensive European film at the time, but at the same time it was also the most successful with a box office gross of $263 million.
French humor and the right tricks combined
Marco also talks in his video about the very “French” humor and the tricks used by Besson that make The Fifth Element a small masterpiece. The film relies a lot on situational comedy, centered images of the characters as well as hasty actions and reactions.
To do this, Besson uses a few well-known principles to fit the film’s huge plot into just under 2 hours. So the entire film doesn’t run according to the “show, don’t tell” principle, but rather according to the “show AND tell” principle.
Perfectly coordinated scenes or conspicuously placed details that always find important use ensure that The Fifth Element doesn’t waste a minute of the film.
In his video, Marco also talks about, among other things, Besson’s inspiration from various comics and his collaboration with some pretty big names, like Jean-Claude Mézières, Moebius and Jean Paul Gaultier, who made The Fifth Element this unique experience.
So, the next time you watch the film, you might be able to see, among other things, that all of the fashion comes from a single creator and that small details like this run through the entire society in the film.
In addition, very little 3D animation was used and the majority of the backdrops are real. With a wrong calculation, the production even caused the largest filmed explosion in a closed room to date. This caused the entire set to burn down, but ultimately also made for a very believable scene.
Marco also talks about another film with Bruce Willis in another video: The film that was supposed to be “Die Hard”…