The Road may forever be the bleakest movie to have such obvious and prominent product placements.
Depiction of dystopia is my favorite film genre and this is the best example thereof since Children of Men. A glimmer of something less senselessly grey than the ash-covered low groaning howl that devours the screen for the duration of the film faintly shines in its last moments, but the all consuming image of hopelessness is so stark that it is so cold and clammy and almost completely devoid of emotion, and the world the movie pictures has been so beat down and starved that it’s hard to even care about the characters or have much of a response to the deeply dehumanizing horror many people have sunk to. It’s eerie. Not because you don’t want to empathize for them, but because you’ve been raped for so long that you have no heart left with which to have any empathy.
The cinematography is broodingly brilliant, almost completely desaturated and with an unsharpening mask applied more strongly for the length of the movie than in any other project I’ve seen, making every hair a thick coarse whisker, and turning Viggo’s already weathered face into that of an gritty and scarred ancient mariner and at the same time giving every object a strange dull glow through the haze that hangs over the world.
Recommended and worth seeing in the theatre.
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Can’t wait to see this. I am wondering how it compares to the book. Cormac McCartney is one of the best living writers IMO.
Can’t wait to see this. I am wondering how it compares to the book. Cormac McCarthy is one of the best living writers IMO.
I haven’t read the book, but Caitlin has, and she said that it’s very very close to the book, although the movie is a little less bleak.
do you remember the talks Vati and I had 40 years ago…
a nobel and a war
today some few got everything
when six billion die
who will do the math and note
that is 1000x 6 million
there will still be 2 billion left but who knows – i don’t – do you – i didn’t think so
i just finished the book yesterday, it was incredible and i read it in less than 24 hrs.
when i read something that has been made into a movie, my mental image of the characters and settings is almost always influenced. in this case i’ve yet to see the film adaptation, but i have watched the trailers and my mass-market copy of the road has Viggo on the cover.
so, initially at least, he’s who i saw in my mind’s eye as i read. but after a while i started seeing my own father with my kid brother who is 13, at least in an emotional sense. but it didn’t stop there and i thought you might like to know, especially in light of your previous post, that i also saw you and Nefarious.
I admit that it’s super depressing to imagine anyone i know, via the internet or otherwise, in the unbearable and brutal situations described in the book, but as i think about it more and more i can’t get away from the love the man has for the boy and the extremes he is willing to push himself through, physically AND emotionally for the safety, well-being, and whatever scraps of a quality of life he can give his child.
or maybe i just pictured you because of your beard.
The book was awesome, Shannon. Read it. Unfortunately for me, the movie isn’t playing anywhere close to me. Closest is Syracuse (I’m in Rochester), so I’m just going to wait for the Blu Ray.
I’m in a Dystopian Fiction class right now and we read this book. It is great/terrifying.
Oryx & Crake/The Year of the Flood are two really awe-some recent dystopian novels I highly recommend (if you are a fan of the genre).
Jon, when I see these movies I do always imagine myself going through those trials… As horrible as the experience would be somehow there’s something very appealing about being tested in that way, and being tested as a family.
I still have nightmares from seeing Children of Men (while pregnant, didn’t help). Awake and asleep.
LOL I hated the book and I love dystopian fiction as well. I thought it was lazy and pretentious writing and should not have been labeled as a novel. Some people thought that it would have worked best as a novella. I agreed.
My two favorite books from the genre are After the Flood by P.C. Jersild and Into the Forest by Jean Hegland. Dystopian fiction <3.
i have a hard time accepting the bleakness of the film with the product placements abounding.
its like, ‘here is some WW2 footage… brought to you by Miller beer, let party!’
I’ve read the book, have yet to see the movie. Its sad, so very truly sad yet at the end your left with this faint tiny glimmer of hope and of course lusting for more.
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