But it has its own limitations: it is isolated in another dimension." It wants to fight back, and extinguish every source of energy or light -animal, vegetable, human. "It feels as if we are asphyxiating it," Besson notes. In the 23rd century of The Fiffh Element, humanity has wandered out among the stars, spreading this life-energy, and further agitating the dark being. In The Fifth Element, Besson posits the question: what if an opposite form of life existed in another dimension - one not made up of life-energy, but a dark, cancerous embodiment of all that is evil? "The energy of life, and this other, evil life-form, are opposites, like fire and ice," Besson explains, "and the more of this life-energy we create, the more it irritates and provokes this other." Besson remembers: "When my father came across Plato's writings on the subject, he came to me with the book and said, 'Do you know that your movie is a remake?' I read it, and was amazed to see the similarities between what Plato had written and what I had put into the script." Though the acclaimed writer/director conceived of the story while still a teenager, he was unaware that the concept of a fifth element - known in Moorish traditions as "Akasha" - is deeply rooted in ancient mythology. Besson conceived of this energy - the energy used to talk, to engage in sports, even to think - as an actual, living thing that never disappears, but spreads throughout the universe and beyond. Four elements gathered together to create the fifth one: life. The title of The Fifth Element refers to the four elements of alchemic Greek tradition -earth, air, fire, and water. Now, Besson teams with Bruce Willis, one of the most dynamic and successful actors of his generation, to take the science fiction film in a new and exciting direction.Ĭolumbia Pictures presents The Fifth Element, a timeless story about love and survival, heroes and villains, good and evil, set in a strangely familiar yet intoxicatingly different 23rd Century. His visually innovative style has marked the critically-acclaimed thriller The Professional, the exotic undersea adventure The Big Blue, the new wave thriller Subway and the seminal action film La Femme Nikita, the first major French blockbuster. One of today's most provocative and acclaimed filmmakers, director Luc Besson's works have captured the imaginations of filmgoers worldwide. This "thing," this darkness, waits patiently at the threshold of the universe for an opportunity to extinguish all life and all light.Įvery five thousand years, the universe needs a hero, and in New York City of the 23rd Century, a good hero is hard to find. In another exists an element made not of earth, air, fire or water, but of anti-energy, anti-life. In one dimension lies the universe and all of its multitude of varied life forms. Every five thousand years, a door opens between the dimensions.