'The Road' to nowhere?
'The Road' was both one of the most depressing and life-affirming movies I have ever seen. The TV ads make it look like a star studded action flick. It isn't.
Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce are hardly in it and most of the story is about the relationship between a father, played brilliantly by Viggo Mortenson, and his son.These two characters walk across a post-apocalyptic landscape where all plant and animal life has died and starving humans have either killed themselves or formed gangs of armed cannibals. The father and son are heading for the coast hoping they will find help, but without any reasons why.
I was watching it in a cinema where the heating had broken down and was at 15C. This aided the sensation of sheer bleakness. The first question the movie asks is, would you kill myself in a situation like that or would you go on fighting and what for? It strikes you that this is one of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves. For the father in 'The Road' it is his son who he lives for. The boy was born at the beginning of the unnamed apocalypse, so has not known what 'normal' society is. His father teaches him to 'find the good guys who have the fire in their hearts and who don't eat people'.
I think this film deserves to be called a masterpiece. The photography is devastating and it asks questions about purpose, faith, and generally what life is all about.
Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce are hardly in it and most of the story is about the relationship between a father, played brilliantly by Viggo Mortenson, and his son.These two characters walk across a post-apocalyptic landscape where all plant and animal life has died and starving humans have either killed themselves or formed gangs of armed cannibals. The father and son are heading for the coast hoping they will find help, but without any reasons why.
I was watching it in a cinema where the heating had broken down and was at 15C. This aided the sensation of sheer bleakness. The first question the movie asks is, would you kill myself in a situation like that or would you go on fighting and what for? It strikes you that this is one of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves. For the father in 'The Road' it is his son who he lives for. The boy was born at the beginning of the unnamed apocalypse, so has not known what 'normal' society is. His father teaches him to 'find the good guys who have the fire in their hearts and who don't eat people'.
I think this film deserves to be called a masterpiece. The photography is devastating and it asks questions about purpose, faith, and generally what life is all about.