posted
Saw this last night... Didn't think I'd like it all that much, but I found the story to be very workable, and the cinemaography to be utterly fantastic.
Set in a bleak, despairing, near-future England where the world's population has been sterile for eighteen years, a working man runs into his former lover and a deal to get him out of debt. She, part of a resistance movement against a government that institutionalizes mass suicide, that puts immigrants into concentration camps, and that bombs its own people to perpetuate a controlling paranoia, implores him to help a young woman escape the city to safety. At first agreeing to do this only for the bribe, he becomes inolved in a massive conspiracy to both protect and harm that young woman - for she is the first pregnant woman in a generation, and the salvation of the world.
This is very much a thinker of a movie. Playing seriously on the modern-day themes of government control, terrorism, and the consequences of sterility, the film creates a very scary look at what a world could be like that can't have children. Everybody's depressed. Schools are abandoned. The "big brother" signs are everywhere. Artists are treasured for their ability to create SOMETHING inspirational, even though everyone accepts that no one will be around to appreciate any of it in a few decades. How would you deal with it? And how would you deal with a pregnant woman that represents the first glimmer of hope the world has seen in decades? The movie explores this very well, and offers several reactions to every question.
And then there's the simply incredible way this film was shot, which itself is Oscar-worthy. Using mostly hand-held shots, the director manages to craft extremely complex scenes with carfully concealed cutaways, special effects, and editting. Several key sequences are made to appear as a single unbroken shot with no cuts, making the action scenes in particular come across as very real and gritty. The lack of music through most of the movie also ups the realism.
This film easily fits in as a classic among its kin from earlier decades: 1984, Farenheit 451, and Soylent Green come to mind. It's a very good movie; I'm not usually one for such dark and distressing portrayals of the future, but this one really makes you think, and that's tough to do in a movie that also serves to entertain as an action piece. I'll probably not watch this movie again, or buy the DVD, but I would seriously recommend you check this one out.
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: a government that institutionalizes mass suicide
Um, why would a government in a world where everyone is sterile want to encourage suicide? Humanity would be extinct in about a century anyway, so what would be the point? I fail to see the logic in that plot...surely any government would be trying to find a way to give the species some glimmer of a future, not helping nature do it's job. There is, after all, no point in power if you're ruling over corpses.
Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
While they don't really go into it in serious detail, the answer to that is in the suicide product name and slogan: "Quietus — You Decide When". The point is that the world really, really sucks. Violence and despair are the norm, and the government, which was already offering anti-depressant drugs as part of the rations, is making the easy way out quick and painless.
posted
Just watched it on DVD rental last night. Very impressed, easily the best new film I've seen all year (the extended cut of Kingdom of Heaven being a close 2nd).
Just an observation, but throughout the whole film I couldn't stop thinking that this is what a film version of Half Life 2 should be like. Ok I know there were no alien tripods of head crab infested zombies, but there was just something about the seamingly continuous shots, depressed urban enviroment, exposition hidden in set dressing and a world without children that reminded me of a FPS about a physicist armed with a crowbar...
...Oh and as for the ending; I thought it was perfect. The world doesn't change over night and evil empires don't fall in a gigantic ball of fire at the hands of rightious freedom fighters. It just muddles along, hopefully in the right direction. Also the best films always end with the hero dying...or not.
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