My apologies first and foremost to our faithful blog readers who have told me they miss our movie picks! From what I hear, Lindsay has been unable to remove her nose from her college textbooks until recently, and I have been planning my 6/5 wedding. I thought though, that I just had far too many opinions of the movie I saw last night to keep all of them to myself!
"The Road" is based on a book by author, Cormac McCarthy. I enjoyed the film "No Country For Old Men", and was looking so forward to seeing Viggo Mortensen, as I am a Lord of the Rings fan! He did not disappoint me, and neither did the boy they cast as his co star.
At first I was a little lost at the film's beginning, as I thought I may have missed something due to the fact that they opened the movie up with a post-apocolyptic setting and no explanation as to how things got that way. We were also struggling to make out the scenes due to our TV's brightness having been dimmed down a little far, and though we had never noticed this to be a problem with any other movie, we realized that "The Road" was no average movie. Needless to say, we had to dial the brightness meter up a bit!
It is dark, both visually and emotionally. It is a quiet movie, with much of the storytelling accomplished through long scenes of our only characters wandering among destruction and a landscape that is gray and bleak. It reminded me a bit of Hayao Miyazaki's animated "Grave of the Fireflies" and also "Legend" starring Will Smith. There is also a foreboding danger to the film, and I found my face nearly touching the TV screen in suspense and dread over the well being of Viggo's character and his character's son! It was truly impossible to not care about them.
The perils they face include the collapse of trees that stand dead from whatever catastrophe laid waste to the country, the constant threat of starvation, and also the threat of the other human survivors who are trying to stave off their own starvation by hunting and killing their fellow men. It is not a film made to portray the end of civilization, but rather of civility. How can we not be reminded of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath by this, or of the recent disaster in Haiti? Of course the death and destruction is tragic, but is it not more tragic to see people prey upon each other and resort to the desperation of basic survival? This, in essense is what the film is about. We are there to watch Viggo's character fight that temptation, for the sake of his own faith in humanity and for the sake of his young son, who he regards as a god-like presense in his life, constantly inspiring him to have hope.
This is not a light film, but it has a surprisingly sweet ending. If you can make it that far without feeling too distressed by the peril, I hope you can agree that it is a film worth seeing. We could all use a dose of deep thought here and there!
Dani
"The Road" is based on a book by author, Cormac McCarthy. I enjoyed the film "No Country For Old Men", and was looking so forward to seeing Viggo Mortensen, as I am a Lord of the Rings fan! He did not disappoint me, and neither did the boy they cast as his co star.
At first I was a little lost at the film's beginning, as I thought I may have missed something due to the fact that they opened the movie up with a post-apocolyptic setting and no explanation as to how things got that way. We were also struggling to make out the scenes due to our TV's brightness having been dimmed down a little far, and though we had never noticed this to be a problem with any other movie, we realized that "The Road" was no average movie. Needless to say, we had to dial the brightness meter up a bit!
It is dark, both visually and emotionally. It is a quiet movie, with much of the storytelling accomplished through long scenes of our only characters wandering among destruction and a landscape that is gray and bleak. It reminded me a bit of Hayao Miyazaki's animated "Grave of the Fireflies" and also "Legend" starring Will Smith. There is also a foreboding danger to the film, and I found my face nearly touching the TV screen in suspense and dread over the well being of Viggo's character and his character's son! It was truly impossible to not care about them.
The perils they face include the collapse of trees that stand dead from whatever catastrophe laid waste to the country, the constant threat of starvation, and also the threat of the other human survivors who are trying to stave off their own starvation by hunting and killing their fellow men. It is not a film made to portray the end of civilization, but rather of civility. How can we not be reminded of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath by this, or of the recent disaster in Haiti? Of course the death and destruction is tragic, but is it not more tragic to see people prey upon each other and resort to the desperation of basic survival? This, in essense is what the film is about. We are there to watch Viggo's character fight that temptation, for the sake of his own faith in humanity and for the sake of his young son, who he regards as a god-like presense in his life, constantly inspiring him to have hope.
This is not a light film, but it has a surprisingly sweet ending. If you can make it that far without feeling too distressed by the peril, I hope you can agree that it is a film worth seeing. We could all use a dose of deep thought here and there!
Dani
