The Road

THE ROAD                    B                  

USA  (112 mi)  2009  ‘Scope  d:  John Hillcoat  

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

—The Beatitudes, Matthew 5: 3 – 10

Well, now we know the end of the world looks like Mount St. Helens, the side of the mountain that blew off with the last volcanic eruption, leaving behind devastation and ruin in its wake, namely gray rivers of dead trees and ash caught in an avalanche of mud.  Life as we knew it is all but gone, only traces left in the few people that roam the countryside.  Haunting, yet quietly affecting, this is as grim as movies can get showing a frightening post apocalyptic vision of the planet in which the living envy the dead, honed down to the barest essentials of what’s left of humanity as thugs with guns roam the countryside constantly searching for food, resorting to cannibalism, keeping helpless victims alive through enslavement, eating them piece by piece.  But this is no zombie movie, this is real life, or what’s left of it, carefully guarded by the keepers of the flame who are “carrying the fire,” a father and son duo who identify themselves as the good guys, both of whom would rather starve to death than resort to ravaging fellow humans.  With quiet reverential piano music by Nick Cave, this feels like a memorial tribute to the fallen victims who have been left behind, all lost due to inexplicable circumstances, still left in the fragmented memories of those who can remember while they’re wandering the earth trying to stay alive.  Viggo Mortensen is the Man with binoculars who scouts out every building before they investigate, always searching inside for something useful, followed by his young 10-year old son, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who becomes an angelic presence by his side.  The spare narration by Mortensen has an almost sacred feel to it, describing a world through memories that are gone, haunted by feelings that are no longer useful in this world, where life has become a harsh and brutal game of survival with few, if any, real choices left, only life or death.  The love that exists between the father and son has a Biblical aura to it, where the presence of God guides their path, but like Jesus in human form, they are tormented by the hideous world all around them. 

This is likely a film experience that would benefit from reading the Cormac McCarthy novel ahead of time, as the rich textures underneath the eerie landscape would certainly elevate this work to poetic heights that the film fails to reach, spending the entirety of the movie in the grim details of eternal struggle, caught up in the disease and horror of the age, where the father in describing a corpse lying under the sheets in a bedroom tells his son that “it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”  The two are on a road to nowhere, described in the book as “tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste.”  There’s nothing stagy here, no signature moments, instead there’s a long, slow push leading them both towards the inevitable end of the road, a point of no return, a finality that registers internally with all the raw anguish of a fallen soldier lost in the brush, soon to be replaced by another, and then another, until there are no more left to fight as sickness and death are all around them, with no hope or salvation for their efforts.  Shot in Oregon, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, this has a rugged, almost cursed look to it, where in an odd moment surrounded by nothing but the dead they actually discover another living creature, an insect that quickly flies away, taking them both by surprise, almost like a miracle.  Every single shot bears a similarity to the working class despair and anguish expressed by Béla Tarr, where man’s unheeded, reckless actions lead him inevitably to a state of hopelessness, where the mystical images of Tarkovsky intrude, where an empty well and the vast and endless ocean seem to coincide, all connected by neverending torrents of rain. 

It’s interesting how the balance of power between the father and son changes as the film goes on, as we get darker into this labyrinth of Hell on earth, where the father has unquestioned authority, but the son’s sense of decency and human kindness is emotionally gripping, as there’s nothing else like that in the entire picture, like light shining in an otherwise darkened corner.  The importance of the son is beautifully recognized only at the end, where even the father seems to understand that he’s taught him all that he can, that the roles have reversed, and the son suddenly has a strange and powerful impact on his father’s actions, suggesting people can change even under the direst of circumstances and at any stage in their lives, and that instead of the strongest and most vile, it is the weakest among us who shall inherit the earth.  All of this really does have a Biblical context set in the bleakest of human conditions, where man’s travails are tested like never before.  It’s pretty clear that as darkness falls across the land where there’s a war outside raging, it’s the interior battles that will determine the ultimate outcome.  Who or what could be more saintly than the thoughts of a child whose innocence seen in this light is utterly captivating.  It’s very much like the final scene in the mystical realms of Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979) where the father witnesses a miracle performed by his own child.  A minimalist exercise on man’s fate, a great portion of which is spent considering the option of suicide or facing the dread of impending doom, but it does finally lead us into transcendent territory where the depths of emotion are matched by the simplicity of its depiction.  If ever there was a film about faith, this is it.   

The Rover

 
 

David Michôd (left) on the set with his two stars

THE ROVER            B+               
Australia  USA  (102 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  David Michôd       Official site

You should never stop thinking about a life you’ve taken. That’s the price you pay for taking it. 

—Eric (Guy Pearce)

Following the brilliance of his earlier film Animal Kingdom (2010), one has come to expect great things from this Australian director, who has turned to a particular style of end of the world, post-apocalyptic film that continues the tradition of fellow Aussies George Miller, who introduced us to the nihilist universe of MAD MAX (1979), but also John Hillcoat, whose equally impressive films The Proposition (2005), as well as his vision of Cormac McCarthy’s death march in The Road (2009), both happen to feature the star of this film, Guy Pearce.  It was Pearce, along with fellow Australian actor Russell Crowe that broke onto the scene with utterly exhilarating performances in the Hollywood film noir thriller LA CONFIDENTIAL (1997), where Crowe went on to become a big star, now reduced to something of a caricature of himself, while Pearce has continued to do stellar work all along.  This film is impossible to imagine without him in mind, as it’s largely a wordless, nightmarish, apocalyptic vision taking place in a barren Australian wasteland set “10 years after the collapse,” with no more specifics ever provided.  Don’t get to your seats late as what happens early determines the rhythm and tone of the entire film, as Eric (Pearce) wanders into a lone bar in the middle of nowhere, a quiet, dusty hole in the wall.  But through the window, we see a truck barreling down the highway upside down, where the bloodied occupants crawl out afterwards, and like parasites stealing other bodies as hosts, these three outlaws break into Eric’s car and drive off into the emptiness of the outback.  Being the enterprising person that he is, Eric is able to get their truck unentangled and goes off after them.  After a brief exchange on the road, where all Eric wants is his car back, he’s instead left for dead on the highway as the outlaws continue on their path to oblivion.  Things fall apart even further after that, like a trek into the heart of darkness, where civilization as we once knew it has all but disappeared, and what’s left is a savage graveyard of dead bodies and souls, where killing people is the best way of getting what you want, as words are a mere afterthought.   What describes this film best is the strange and eerie musical soundtrack by Antony Partos (who also scored Animal Kingdom), much of which sounds like industrial noise, but it has the capacity to reflect the altered sense of consciousness that pervades throughout this dusty landscape, certainly as effective as the legendary music by Ennio Morricone in Sergio Leone films, but supercharged with creepy effects. 

Introduced through a flashback sequence, Robert Pattinson as Rey is similarly left for dead on the roadside, and though badly wounded, he crawls into a vehicle until unable to continue.  By a strange act of fate, these two are mysteriously brought together in the vast emptiness, as Rey recognizes the car Eric is driving, claiming it belongs to his brother.  Eric demands to know where his brother is, but doesn’t get far after giving him a crushing blow that only knocks him out.  Driving into a surreal abyss, with dead bodies strung onto the passing telephone poles, it’s a precautionary reminder of what to expect if one ventures further, like a ghoulish nightmare.  A visit to another weird stop on the road leads him to a somewhat deranged grandmother (Gillian Jones) who passes as the madam in a dingy brothel, who can’t seem to understand why he’s so intent on finding his car, “What a thing to get worked up about in this day and age,” where Eric picks up some weaponry, but at a heavy price.  The menacing tone exists throughout the film, made even more pronounced when Rey comes to, where we discover he’s something of a half-wit, viewed initially as little more than a mangy dog left on the side of the road after being hit by a car, but slowly a more resilient personality begins to take shape, almost by surprise, but not until after Eric discovers the whereabouts of a doctor, a woman living in the outback (Susan Prior), where one of the more somber scenes in the film is watching Eric stumble upon a room with a dozen or so dogs in cages, where he sits and stares at them, identifying with their state of captivity and their loss of freedom, but they’re alive, all abandoned by their owners who disappeared into the night never to return.  After another horrific scenario plays out, a continuing pattern that recurs throughout the movie, breaking the mood of what is otherwise a movie set in quiet and near silence, Eric brings his recovering patient along as they barrel down the highway into the bleakness of the night.  While they presumably have a destination, as Rey’s condition improves, he freely acknowledges where his brother is likely to be, Henry (Scoot McNairy), and his two cohorts Caleb (Tawanda Maryimo) and Archie (David Field), as he’s just as curious about finding them, especially after they abandoned him.   

Though they’re on the road for most of the picture, the film is not so much a road movie, more a depiction of gruesome, neverending horror, where the grim circumstances never relent, shown without any trace of humor, but as time goes on, the movie delves into the psychological interiors of the two men, both considerably damaged, though Rey’s mental confusion makes him comparable to Lennie from Steinbeck’s depression novel Of Mice and Men, seen here as a kind of caged animal that doesn’t know his own strength, who is instead constantly viewed through the fragility of his mental weakness.  At one point he’s rambling on in the car about his farmer neighbors, this after learning Eric was a farmer before the collapse, until he’s rudely interrupted by Eric wondering why he’s telling him all this personal crap, and Rey meekly retorts, “Not everything has to be about something.”  The movie comes to reflect the shifting tones between these two characters, where there are subtle changes in their feelings toward each other, where the audience is drawn into this as well, as initially the focus is upon the heroic aspects of Eric, seen as a lone warrior against an out of control wilderness, but slowly the viewer takes an interest in the more vulnerable Rey, whose crazed ramblings may reflect the last vestiges of humanity.  What’s intriguing about Rey is his need for companionship, where he’s afraid of being left alone, where he’s the kind of guy that can’t decide anything for himself, as he needs to be told what to do.  In one of the more hypnotic moments of the film, in the still of night, while the two are sitting by a campfire, Eric intently tells Rey not just what awful things have happened to him, but what God has done to him, stripping through the layers, exposing his real fears, leaving him utterly defenseless to the kind of pain that is ripping the earth apart.  It’s the closest we come to the kind of excruciating pain and anguish, which is all that’s left in the world.  This film at least attempts to do what Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011), for instance, fails to do, which is get in touch with the end stages of human emotions once the realization is made that all is lost.  Rey has a flashback moment where the car radio plays Keri Hilson - Pretty Girl Rock - YouTube (4:14), a reminder of the superficial vanity that once was, an era consumed by mindless impulses and myopic convictions, replaced by a vast wasteland where there’s nobody left that cares.  As bleak as they get, this all takes place under the scorching 110 degree heat of the Australian outback with flies everywhere, shot where it’s 9-hours by car in any direction to the nearest civilization.  Michôd is excellent in creating a world that is frighteningly unforgiving and cruel, yet portrayed through realism and raw emotions, where every last character has become alienated from their former humanity, suggesting how easy it is for civilization to simply disappear off the face of the earth.  Something of a concept film, reminiscent of those 50’s novels where nuclear fallout would inevitably destroy the world, like Alas, Babylon, On the Beach, Level 7, or Fail-Safe, here one’s worst fears have already become realized and there’s simply no answer for the neverending sadness that greets each empty moment with an all-consuming silence. 

The Proposition

THE PROPOSITION              B+                  

Australia  Great Britain  (104 mi)  2005  ‘Scope  d:  John Hillcoat

A good and evil revenge drama written and scored by Nick Cave, drearily set in a town on the border of the wide open spaces of the Australian Outback, as desolate and godforsaken a place as has ever graced the screen, where any semblance of “civilization” is as out of place as any notion of justice.  Yet those are the overriding themes in this concisely paired down western where an outlaw gang has been terrorizing the locals, where humans are like ants on the landscape, barely scratching the surface from the overall looks of things, yet leaving behind a bloody trail of the savagely brutal evidence of their handiwork, which includes murder and rape.  The story is largely seen through two sets of eyes, Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), the bullying British sheriff wearing an Army uniform brought in to establish the law, boasting “I will civilize this country,” and Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), part of the ruthless Burns gang, captured early on by Stanley along with his baby brother Mikey (Richard Wilson).  Stanley makes him a proposition to set him free in order to kill his older brother, the sadistically psychotic madman Arthur Burns (Danny Huston), the most violently uncontrollable of the brothers, holed up in the most barren, vacuous landscape that the police and even the Aboriginals refuse to go there.  Carry out this act and his baby brother’s life will be spared, otherwise Mikey will be hanged in one week’s time on Christmas Day.  What follows are beautifully structured parallel stories of the two men, both of whom spend their time in the company of corrupt, disgruntled and despicable men, as the soldiers are drunken lowlifes who would just as soon beat the prisoner to death as see him live another day, while the Burns brothers themselves are no picnic, depraved savages who seem to kill for sport. 

What’s evident in nearly every shot is the scorching heat, where dirt and dust define the land, where barely anything survives in this hostile isolation, where the land itself couldn’t be more uninviting, yet the beauty of the landscape is magnificently shot by cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, much of which resembles the poetic look of a Terrence Malick film, capturing the serenity of a series of sunsets that torch the earth in bright, brazen colors.  But the people couldn’t be more dark and gloomy, having nothing that amounts to satisfaction in their perpetually deprived lives.  In a lustrous performance, Emma Watson plays Captain Stanley’s exaggeratedly well mannered wife, whose gorgeous presence is like a mirage on the landscape, where the constantly under siege Stanley continually has to return her safely back home to the white picket fence and the pristine red rose bushes in order to prevent her from seeing the brutally dirty business involved in tracking down outlaws.  Winstone has spent so much of his career playing guys on the wrong side of the law, that when he plays this robust sheriff with a raw edge, he’s like the last bastion of moral order, as the townspeople can’t wait until Christmas and want to rip the prisoner apart, despite the fact he’s just a kid, and the real danger remains at large.  When the local prosecutor gets wind of the deal Stanley made with the outlaws, he undermines his authority and orders Mikey to receive a public flogging of 100 lashes, perhaps the turning point of the film, as Stanley is reduced to a powerless bystander while the savagely grotesque scene shows justice when administered as revenge to be as wickedly evil as the crime itself, where even the horrified onlookers turn away witnessing this kid completely slumped over already near dead, reduced to a bloody mess before they even get halfway done.   

As Charlie crosses the expanse of the perpetually empty landscape contemplating what he has to do with his brother, we have seen this part of the story before visualized in Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), where a U.S. Captain (Martin Sheen) is ordered to take out a deranged renegade American commander (Marlon Brando) who has portrayed himself as a God to the natives.  Similarly, Arthur Burns is living in an abandoned cave somewhere with another younger white Samuel (Tom Budge), who sings a lovely Irish song, along with an Aboriginal sidekick Two-Bob (Tom E. Lewis) and Queenie (Leah Purcell), living among the Aboriginal people, hunting and living off the land as they do, but also making murderous raids into the white town.  Charlie’s visit is a bit unsettling, as he arrives without Mikey, where the weight of his visit is upon his shoulders.  Hillcoat does an excellent job shifting between the two stories, editing the material together, and sustaining the psychological tension, where there’s some question as to whether Captain Stanley or Charlie Burns is the lead, as both carry moral dilemmas on their backs, like bullseyes, but only Stanley is targeted and actually emasculated by his superior.  Charlie is the great unknown, as he’s already an unlawful outsider, so for him to administer justice does not typically meet Western society’s needs.  It’s unusual for him to have been assigned the task, which adds plenty of weight to his role, played with a near wordless complexity that Pearce relishes.  His outsider status confirms the difficulty in assigning society’s moral responsibility, like Charles Bronson’s vigilante justice in DEATH WISH (1974 – 94), or John Wayne’s years long search for his niece in THE SEARCHERS (1956), which sometimes resemble the lawless acts the society condemns, but silently accepts during particularly harsh and brutal times, where in crossing the line the film actually plunges into the horror genre to make that point.