The Road (15.)
Directed by John Hillcoat.
Starring Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Garret Dillahunt. 111 mins.
In this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a bedraggled father and son stumble across a blighted post apocalyptic landscape. As they struggle against starvation and cannibalism, we are asked to question what sustains them, where does their will to survive come from? The answer, I suspect, is it’s the one they’ve sucked out of the audience.
Hillcoat’s film has a unique and distinctive vision - a thousand shades of grey. To misquote Spinal Tap, it's like, how much more grey could this be? And the answer is none. None more grey.
For as long as I can remember the movies have been dredging up post-apocalyptic fantasies for my delectation. These usually amounted to a re-ordering of the social order into something more conducive to brutal survivalist action fantasy. No matter the megaton of the soviet nuclear assault, there would always be enough weaponry and black leather fetish gear to re-gather for another thrilling set piece.
McCarthy’s nameless apocalypse (nothing gets a name here) is not like that at all but it still has that things-just-fell-into-place convenience. It is the perfect act of housecleaning, neatly leaving the artist with a world of perfect, pristine misery.
The relationship with the child seems improbable. The Boy (Smit-McPhee) was born post cataclysm yet he seems to be entirely innocent. If this barren world is all his knows, surely he would have grown up to be a bit tougher, a little more feral. He approaches it like a public school kid whose been forced to go to the rough comprehensive.
Now in many ways the film is beautifully executed. Robert Duvall, almost unrecognisable, gives an extraordinary performance in his brief cameo. Mortenson is a ferociously committed and effective actor and is ideal for the symbolic role of the Last Man. Watching him you think how he‘d make a perfect Jesus; every role he takes he plays as if he was performing some kind of sanctified, world altering feat.
Australian Hillcoat made the stark and brutal western The Proposition and would have appeared to be an ideal choice for capturing McCarthy. He’s missed it though. It has been lovingly transcribed to the screen but the book’s not there. It’s more like a Samuel Beckett zombie movie, a relentless pointless drudge. Watching it is like playing a first person computer game, Sisyphus Apocalypse.
Directed by John Hillcoat.
Starring Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Garret Dillahunt. 111 mins.
In this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a bedraggled father and son stumble across a blighted post apocalyptic landscape. As they struggle against starvation and cannibalism, we are asked to question what sustains them, where does their will to survive come from? The answer, I suspect, is it’s the one they’ve sucked out of the audience.
Hillcoat’s film has a unique and distinctive vision - a thousand shades of grey. To misquote Spinal Tap, it's like, how much more grey could this be? And the answer is none. None more grey.
For as long as I can remember the movies have been dredging up post-apocalyptic fantasies for my delectation. These usually amounted to a re-ordering of the social order into something more conducive to brutal survivalist action fantasy. No matter the megaton of the soviet nuclear assault, there would always be enough weaponry and black leather fetish gear to re-gather for another thrilling set piece.
McCarthy’s nameless apocalypse (nothing gets a name here) is not like that at all but it still has that things-just-fell-into-place convenience. It is the perfect act of housecleaning, neatly leaving the artist with a world of perfect, pristine misery.
The relationship with the child seems improbable. The Boy (Smit-McPhee) was born post cataclysm yet he seems to be entirely innocent. If this barren world is all his knows, surely he would have grown up to be a bit tougher, a little more feral. He approaches it like a public school kid whose been forced to go to the rough comprehensive.
Now in many ways the film is beautifully executed. Robert Duvall, almost unrecognisable, gives an extraordinary performance in his brief cameo. Mortenson is a ferociously committed and effective actor and is ideal for the symbolic role of the Last Man. Watching him you think how he‘d make a perfect Jesus; every role he takes he plays as if he was performing some kind of sanctified, world altering feat.
Australian Hillcoat made the stark and brutal western The Proposition and would have appeared to be an ideal choice for capturing McCarthy. He’s missed it though. It has been lovingly transcribed to the screen but the book’s not there. It’s more like a Samuel Beckett zombie movie, a relentless pointless drudge. Watching it is like playing a first person computer game, Sisyphus Apocalypse.
