![]() When humanity begins to feed on itself, it becomes circular and suicidal as a species. “Cannibalism is the great fear,” says The Man in his narration. They’re a carnivorous bunch, moving in aggressive clans along the road, scouting the woods for travelers to capture and kill. The Bad Guys, then, resort to cannibalism for survival. That’s The Man’s motto that he passes along to his son. Everyone else has reverted to a savage animal state, scratching at and killing each other for survival in any way possible. In their surroundings, they seem to be the only source of humankind left. But he has to keep moving and maintain “the fire” of humanity as long as he can. Is this for protection? Or will the bullets be used for something else should that time of absolute hopelessness and desperation come? Perhaps, if it weren’t for the presence of The Boy, The Man might’ve already emptied one of the chambers. He carries a gun loaded with but two bullets. The Man endures because he must, if only for the sake of The Boy, and that’s what matters. Now the sky is filled with ash, and snow mixes with the ash to make sort of a gray mud. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, not with the brooding narrative about survival before us. But it’s also incredibly moving in its endurance amid despair.Īs to what caused this apocalypse, the film does not say. Watching the film causes an unsettling physical unease. Underneath every scene, there are fear and apprehension, a sense of danger that’s infectious. Long passages without much sound are interrupted by sharp, terrifying realities. The story follows The Man, played by a leathery and intense Viggo Mortensen, and his son, The Boy, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. The world depicted is a pitiless wasteland wherein characters have no names and speak little dialogue. ![]() This is the landscape of The Road, the film by director John Hillcoat and adapted by screenwriter Joe Penhall, based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel. Humanity has been reduced to a few remaining stragglers, so they must tread carefully, as other survivors have grown into desperate and violent reflections of their unforgiving environment. Eating insects and stumbling upon cans of food is their only saving grace. Trees are lifeless and bare, and they will never sprout buds again. Completely on their own, there is no government or societal infrastructure of any kind. They walk together on abandoned and barren highways cracked by time, under a sky of limitless gray, heading for the coast, to the ocean where their hope resides.
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