Finally rented it tonight and watched it with some friends. Sorry to be bumping this, but I kinda feel like ranting.
I think an important point that's been made is how the movie works excellently the "show, don't tell" rule. Not only in the beginning, with a clear introduction to the general setting, but throughout, details such as, as mentioned, the way the midwife drew attention to herself (in a relatively subtle way; it somehow didn't feel immediately obvious to me that she was doing so) and then as the bus progresses the final shot of the lined-up corpses tells us exactly how this is likely to go. That one stuck with me.
And in terms of Le Action, damn. We commented, when watching the scene where Theo, Kee and the midwife run away from the Fishes in the car, "this has to be the worst escape I've ever seen", and laughed, but in a congratulory way: it felt messed-up, clumsy, about to fail. No wonderfully speedy car, no immediate entering vehicles to chase them (yeah, I liked the detail of Theo actually thinking, hey, might be best to actually stop them from chasing after us). If felt like an attempt at an escape rather than, immediately, an escape, if that makes sense. It felt as a moment developing rather than when already fulfilled and just rolling out before us in an obvious way. Because it could easily go wrong and in such a simple manner. And the way DreadBastard gets the door again and falls to the side of the road manages to be amusing and exciting at the same time. Killed me.
The previous scene that that bit refers to is brilliant, too (when all four are attacked on the road). I was genuinely surprised and confused by the car in flames, which suddenly came to make sense with the crowd attacking, all rage and a sense of lack of organization as they just pratically threw themselves at the car, only to be cut by the motorcycle, making a strange contrast of tech vs pack-mentality (if this makes sense), amping up the danger quotient... and the death. Wonderful. Sudden blood, and panick, and Theo's hand on her throat... I can't really remember seeing an action scene that was quite so raw and with a dense feeling of "Yes, this is all about to go to shit"; it genuinely felt wrong and disturbing. Wonderful.
Of course, none of this is new, but the thing is, well like just about everyone here I loved seeing it, but I can't say I loved it. Theo had no character arch beyond the notion of, after his child's death, taking up a, in a sense, "political" and active funcion again to protect a child. Granted, with Jasper's comment about how his faith was expressed in his son, and his death by random implied the end of his faith, his actions gain an extra weight and meaning as a regaining of faith. But his general lack of emotional presence kept that from coming into reality as an emotional process for me, and his death evades any sense of resolution for the character. His death is just, well, his active function taken to the extreme as sacrificial.
Jasper makes up for it, but not fully, when taking in consideration that the midwife is put out of the picture and Kee serves a function rather than being much of a character in her own terms.
Actually, Theo's death just bored the fuck out of me, as did the way it coincided with them being found. All Will Be Well!... but, Oh!, The Hero, He Shall Not See It! felt like such a major fucking cliché. Some sort of aftermath would have satisfied me as well. Nothing too obvious, of course, but if the film-makers had found a way to somehow give a sense of greater calm and security in the end, I'd be more satisfied.
I also got kind of stuck on a What If regarding the birth - for a second there, I genuinely though "Oh fuck, the baby's dead", and expected a wholly new direction for the film. It was an impressive shift of direction. It's a shame it... well, wasn't. It might be interesting to see how to play out that Kee herself, not the child, is "the miracle", and put that to work in a harsh, almost practical sense while doing away with the imagery of the baby in danger.
So I guess I'm saying, in essence... Wonderful "succession of events", all well-written and well executed, but a lack of a cohesive line of character development. So I enjoyed it. Sure. But I couldn't fall in love with it as some have. |
