It's Getting Hot In Here

Apocalyptic thriller streaming on Netflix?

JUST TRY AND STOP ME.

Quick Plot: Somewhere in Europe where people speak in German, the world has experienced a devastating solar storm that has rendered society into a wasteland. Water and fuel are scarce, while the sun now beats down with violently hot burn-inducing rays.

And sadly, there is no leather.

Enter a car of survivors: Marie, a resourceful young woman who resembles Asia Argento's gentler twin, her younger teenage sister Leonie, and Philip, the man who has helped to keep them alive and, we gather, Marie's bed warm. At a scavenged gas station, they adds another member: Tom, a mysterious but useful straggler. Some car trouble and chaotic kidnappings later, the group is separated, with Marie finding suspicious shelter in a farm commune.

When I first started Hell, I was instantly impressed. The film immediately establishes its societal crumble with subtle visuals and implied tone. Though we never get much history from the characters, Hannah Herzsprung conveys a plucky strength that we easily root for in Marie, while her tricky relationship with a bratty kid sis and merely suitable romantic partner lends complicated tension. Early on, Philip points out that Marie needs to put Leonie "under control," a statement with tricky undertones about hierarchy that are later amplified by Marie's family values-minded new group. The screenplay never quite steps up to confront its ideas about gender politics during survival of the fittest, but the hints of discussion are intriguing on their own.

Unfortunately, Hell isn't quite up to the challenge of being a truly deep philosophical analogy, which would okay if the film didn't also hesitate on the action end. Somewhere between the panoramic father/son drama of The Road and coldly detached Time of the Wolf, Hell is the kind of film that's easier to appreciate than it is to enjoy. First-time filmmaker Tim Fehlbaum creates an incredibly strong and striking world, but with such a small scope, you expect the human element to matter more. While Herzsprung's Marie has a wonderful presence, her relationship with the bratty Leonie never resonates as deeply as it should (because, you know, the kid’s kind of a brat), while Philip's flaws are too easily brushed over. Between the created world and intriguing characters, there’s plenty of interesting potential that’s just never really tapped.

High Notes

Between the almost sepia suntones and graying vegetation, the apocalyptic environment of Hell truly does look great

Low Notes

You know, the fact that nothing is really going on

Lessons Learned

Birds always know where the water is

Jump starting a car is a lot easier than it sounds

No matter how far into the future you go, no man will ever evolve far enough to not be confounded by the complications of a net

If your prisoner keeps trying to escape, perhaps you should keep someone on watch

Rent/Bury/Buy

Obsessive post-apocalypse compulsives such as myself will certainly get something from Hell. The visual design itself makes it worth a watch, although the actual narrative leaves a whole lot to be desired. Queue it up on Instant Watch if you’re in the mood for some effective end of the world atmosphere and keep an eye out for Fehlbaum’s future (and hopefully more fully realized) efforts.

It's a Germ's World. We Just Die In It.

When you really think about it, the popularity of post apocalyptic film and fiction says some very mysterious things about the arts loving public. Are we fascinated by the all-too-possible tease of our own demise? Taking notes on what to do when disaster strikes? Actively trying to undo the damage before it becomes real? Or do we just have a soft spot for watching overgrown beards illuminated by homemade bonfires?

Whatever the reason, I too find any short story, novel, play, movie, miniseries, or religious cartoon pamphlet handed out on Halloween that’s seeped in anarchy and mass devastation to be truly fascinating. Hence, 2009‘s studio-made but straight-to-DVD released Carriers found its way up my queue faster than you could say ‘the quiet earth.’ Toss in a plague element (particularly when this viewer is nursing a hopefully non-fatal form of sore throat) and a supporting role filled by Chris Meloni and you’ve sold me well before the term PG-13 can muster even the slightest taste of discouragement. 

Quick Plot: The sun is shining as four smiling friends drive towards the beach with beers in their hands and flirtation in their eyes. It’s just like Creepshow 2...except instead of a carnivorous oil spill and porous raft, our characters are escaping a nationwide pandemic with no hope of immunity in sight.

And that’s about all I’ll say before delving into SPOILER CITY. Be warned: it’s a foul smelling land that rivals New Jersey in rotting trash and toxic fumes, but sometimes, to get to one special place you must hold your nose, close your eyes, and run faster than Danny Boyle’s infected to brave the cloud of hairspray on the way. In the case of Carriers, I want too much to discuss some of its plot and character choices to hint about it in a general review. For those who haven’t seen it, skip to the bottom (Rent/Bury/Buy) for my summary. All others, let’s talk:

Like Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf  (a film directors Alex and David Pastor cited as a ripe source of inspiration), Carriers takes the idea of society’s death in the wake of disaster and uses its possibilities to explore humanity. Excuse me while I cough up some pretentious tasting phlegm brought up by that last statement.

By the way, my pretentious phlegm wanted to say hi:

Continuing, our four main characters start out as standard film fodder: the jerky big brother Brian (Star Trek’s Chris Pine, hinting at some interestingly dark charisma lurking beneath a pretty boy exterior), his seemingly slutty girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo), the Yale-bound nice guy Danny (Lou Tayor Pucci) and a shy rich girl Kate (Emily VanCamp). In a way, they’re all a tad off-putting and nowhere near as sympathetic as Meloni and his adorably dying daughter, but you know what? They’re wiling to do what it takes to survive, so like it or not, it's their path we follow.

Like every movie about the apocalypse, Carriers abides by the rule that strangers generally aren’t friends you haven’t met. Some are racist. Some are potential rapists. All can be liars and hypocrites and none (well, at least none that make it past the early days of infection) are generous and trusting. What I think Carriers does particularly well is demonstrate just how a normal, everyday human being can become the kind of stock villain that pops up in any disaster genre.

Take, for example, the character of Kate. Early in the film, she’s presented as a rather spoiled rich girl who simply wants to reunite with her parents, uselessly playing with dead payphones and tearing up at the suggestion of hopelessness. After she watches enough of the horrors around her, Kate learns--or perhaps, has always known and gains the confidence to actually put into action--how to influence Bobby into making a decision he’s been incapable of acting on in the past. Likewise, we see the valor of Bobby’s moral superiority slowly chip away as the reality of survival sets in with each passing tragedy. Even Pine’s Brian--a stock character fully aware of his own jerk-itude--evolves and devolves in ways most 100 minute films wouldn’t even think necessary to detail.

It's almost as though Carriers takes place around the 27th day of 28 Days Later. Characters like the Hazmat wearing germophobes come across as regular civilians still unsure as to what they're willing to do in a new world. Once devout (or fish loving) Christians choose their lives over risky human compassion. Doctors euthanize children before their bodies have a chance to fight a losing battle with disease. The world has given up, but nobody is confident in exactly what that means just yet.

Carriers is far from a great film and in some ways, not even overly enjoyable. Its story is as stark as its landscape is bright, but even that cinematography style is another interesting choice for a film that could have been so formulaic in both story and execution. Most post-apocalyptic films go for graying skies and try their hardest to color every blade of grass with dreary desolation. The landscape of Carriers is strangely untouched, a choice that makes the disharmony with what's happening in its human world oddly unnerving.

High Points

The opening misdirect-introducing typical pretty people on a joyride only to reveal the true nature of their roadtrip--starts with the right kind of twist that appropriately sets us in a world filled with the folks we know facing a situation we don’t

Similarly, the choice to start Carriers in the middle of the plague’s onslaught, with no flashbacks, prologue, or newsreels bombarding us with exposition, helped to make a surprisingly dense film move briskly without any real wasted scenes 

Though some of the scene’s dialogue inside feels a little too forced, the rescue center sequence (and its even sadder aftermath) is incredibly effective due both to the strangely unnerving empty bed/plastic curtain setup followed by the subdued earnestness of Chris Meloni

Low Points

While I have no real issue with the story ending how and where it did, the choice to introduce heavy-handed narration over home video footage felt forced and cheesy in a film that was in no way either of those things for 90% of its running time.

I’m not a big fan of the ‘extreme closeup on an importantly placed object’ trick often used to foreshadow an impending story action, and Carriers is guilty of this offense way too often

Lessons Learned

During a pandemic, gasoline may be sparse, but at least bullet supplies in handguns seem to be endless

Sand is dirt. (On a related note, if I ever start a band, this is so the title of our first single)

To avoid dropping any hint about accidental blood spatter during a plague, be sure to wear only dark colors and/or keep a Tide stain remover pen inside your pocket at all times

Millworkers do not appreciate having their windows smashed by darned kids 

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING SPOILER CITY

Try to clean up after yourself before you go.

Rent/Bury/Buy

This isn’t an Idiocracy type good time or Pulse level of nightmare-inducing horror, but I highly recommend any fan of the post apocalyptic genre gives this film a rental with an open mind. It’s easy to write off as a sleek pretty-people-in-peril thriller, but Carriers succeeds at both delivering a well-paced thriller and tossing in new elements to well-worn territory in filmdom. I don't mean to oversell this as a classic or mini masterpiece, but for a crowd-pleasing eye candy flick relegated to your local video store (or, let's face it, Internet provider), Carriers has a lot to offer. Sadly, none of that is to be found on the complete lack of special featured DVD. Give it a watch, mail it back, then keep your eye out for the Brothers Pastor's next work.

Unfunny Games After the Apocalpyse

After watching something like the gleefully tacky and trashy Doomsday, nothing feels overly exciting, particularly a quiet, untacky, untrashy French drama set in a realistic post apocalyptic world, where nary a mohawk or gladiator ring is to be found. Instead, Europe's favorite buzzkilling auteur Michael Haneke brings us a painfully slow story (of sorts; more below) of a joyless near-future filled with the prestige of a Very Good Film and the spirit of, I don't know, arthritic bones.


Quick Plot: A young French family arrives at their country cottage to discover that another young French family has moved in with a loaded rifle and territorial desperation. A surprising pull of the trigger widows mum Isabelle Huppert, driving her and her two children into nearly deserted villages, occasionally stopping to grab some handouts from reluctant neighbors while looking blank and sad.

We're never told what event has sent France spinning into decaying chaos--a point that is both frightening and frustrating. Much like his brilliant Cache, which left the audience with unanswered yet deeply fascinating questions, Haneke's Time of the Wolf doesn't provide much in the way of resolution or clear plot. A fourth character--a feralish boy with a murky conscience--has a dramatic entrance that doesn't develop into the family relationship you'd expect. Eventually, Huppert & Co. join more survivors at an abandoned train depot to wait for a Godotish train in conditions of misery and starvation. While there are hints of villainy in the brutish leader, racist stragglers, and a pre-InsideBeatice Dahl, Haneke avoids developing the typical conflicts or actual story. There is no huge confrontation or climactic event that point us towards salvation or destruction; instead, we simply get survival.

Imagine Cormac McCarthy's The Road without characters (and with a bicycle in place of the shopping cart) and you might come close to Time of the Wolf. It's dark and rather depressing, but also poetic and eerie. Haneke can make intriguing films and his spirit in bucking the trends and cliches of common cinema is refreshing. At the same time, it's hard to accept a film that chooses to not have a central protagonist or even basic plotline to follow.


High Points
An early scene lit entirely by a dying, then raging, fire is truly tense


The absence of any score helps feels hauntingly appropriate


Small hints of what went wrong are effectively channeled through a few disturbing images, such as a herd of cows burning in the night


Low Points
As if a French film with minimum everything by Michael Haneke needed any more help, the choice to have completely silent and black background opening credits amps up the pretentiousness before the first line is spoken


With so many characters and so few names and closeups, it's just too difficult at times to decipher who's who

Lessons Learned
Birds do not make ideal pets in any situation, much less the post apocalypse


If a gigantic disaster strikes your country but you seem to be living safely, it's best to stay put


Rent/Bury/Buy
When I was watching Time of the Wolf, I was bored and more than a bit antsy for something to happen. It doesn't. It's been a few days now, and I now have to admit that Haneke's work has stayed with me. This is probably one of the most realistic depictions of a post-apocalyptic society in recent cinema, and sadly, much of what the characters undergo is not uncommon to certain reaches of the world today, adding some timely weight to a future vision.


So. Rent, bury, or buy? I haven't had this hard a time slapping a label on a film and it makes me understand Roger Ebert's annoyance with the star system rating. Genuine film fans who like a slow burning, though provoking drama might purchase (a few DVD extras seem worth a gander). Apocalyptic afficionados can rent (or do Watch Now via Netflix). Straight horror fans should skip. Personally, I fall under all three categories and am left confused as to how I ultimately felt about the movie. It's well-made and ultimately leaves a deep impression, but the lack of strong characterization or, well, Stuff That Happens makes it hard for me to honestly say I would watch it again. Even though I know I should. Because it's good. But...sigh...you get my point.

I'll just have to wait another twelve postponed release dates for the eventual arrival of Viggo Mortenson giving what will undoubtedly be a fantastic performance in The Road. Should that movie ever actually be released in the 21st century or before the first round of actual apocalpysies.