RECOMMENDED: The Road (John Hillcoat 2009) Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, The Road is a post-apocalyptic starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Set in the United States after an unspecified catastrophe has decimated the population and wiped out most life on the planet, a man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) roam the countryside, trying to stay alive and hoping to find some sort of remaining civilization. In a freezing world with constant grey skies, the two travel South as they figure it might be warmer there and are constantly on their guard for other survivors, many of whom have turned to cannibalism due to the dwindling food supplies. The father has a pistol but only two bullets left and through flashbacks it is revealed that after the catastrophe first hit, his wife (Charlize Theron) was still alive and they were trying to survive in their old home after the birth of their son. But when an intruder had to be shot, the three bullets the father initially had saved to possibly commit suicide were reduced to two and the mother left, claiming he had done so purposefully to avoid having to kill her. Now the father and son navigate their way South, but traveling through a landscape filled with peril in which the only thing that matters is survival makes just remaining human a challenge in itself. One of the bleakest and grimmest post-apocalyptic film adaptations to ever hit the screen, The Road still manages to somehow convey as sense of hope, no matter how slight. Viggo Mortensen is fantastic as the man who will do anything to keep his son alive and Kodi Smit-McPhee strikes the perfect note portraying a kid who has never known a world other than the horrible one he finds himself in, yet always seemingly aware that things should be better than this. The cinematography, costumes and art direction all create a convincingly bleak post-apocalyptic landscape which the minimalist score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis perfectly compliments. Also look out for great small supporting parts by Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and received many other international nominations, primarily for Viggo Mortensens performance and Javier Aguirresarobes cinematography. youtube/watch?v=94KcI0gLq1A
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 12:40:13 +0000
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