The Road (2009) The coming apocalypse
The future of rambling?
The width of the road separating John Hillcoats film of Cormac McCarty’s novel ‘The Road’ from the CGI lead ‘2012′ is quite vast. Both do their respective jobs; 2012 gives you an apocalypse you can enjoy while stuffing your face with popcorn. Hillcoat with screenwriter Joe Penhall delivers an apocalyptic vision of an earth slowly dying. The last inhabitants are not on an adventure were family values triumph or you become a better father in the process.
Family matters in The Road but one part of it is lost and the other two; father and son who are nameless wander a landscape devastated by an unexplained catastrophe. Father teaches son how to use a gun on a threat or when the time comes himself. Open wide son and let the bullet do its worse.
The plot is minimal with some flashbacks to a happier time. The contrast in colour from the hues of devastation that are dulled brown and grey to the life before is profound. Father and son otherwise known simply as man and boy played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee hit the road in search of food and the coast. This is no dust bowel of Grapes of Wrath except of course for the desperate few who survive, Steinbeck’s dust bowel would be heaven for the inhabitants of this film. The earth in The Road is untrustworthy, trees just fall seemingly out of tiredness. All around through stark images we see an earth that is just simply letting go, giving up and unable to support life. Hardly surprising suicide is depicted, whole families just hanging form the ceiling of a cellar. In The Road suicide is an incentive in a world were cannibalism has taken hold. Vegetarian this film is not and the cannibals live quite nicely in a house with food in the cellar. Human food, when the cellar door opens we face a scene not out of place in Pasolini’s Salo. The cannibals, roaming gangs are not so to speak judged but are deemed to have lost their humanity. Boy and man assure themselves they are the keepers of the flame. The film comes close to being emotional when we see the father lose his humanity and become harsh in face of the boys protests. The flame is indeed with the boy not the man.
Emotionally the film should be quite devastating but actually the film is quite stand offish. You feel a terrible pity for their plight but instead look at a cold distance. The film has exciting moments of course; escape from cannibals, avoid the tree drops and the tension when a deserted building maybe is not at all. Director John Hillcoat says he was influenced by John Boormans Deliverance and sought desperately to avoid any hint of Mad Max. This is a different sort of apocalypse, less sun, no Tina Turner and a society were the cannibals are positively middle class. They live in homes with an exercise bike.
Despite the acting performances which are good the real interest of the film is visual. Ruined cities, boats up-ended from the sea and found food. A drink of coke, a tin of Del Monte are high points of the journey. Wishing for the arrival of the Apple Tablet computer is far from your mind in the coming apocalypse that comes to pass in The Road and may yet face us all for real in the future.
