There was a bit of Australia today at the Venice Film Festival, with Queensland director John Hillcoat (The premonition) promoting his latest effort: “The Road“. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron. The film is based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel of the same name; it is a story of post-apocalyptic survival. A father and a son move across a destroyed, almost lifeless landscape, desperately trying to survive.
The filmsends out a message: we need to get back to basics in a contemporary world low on spirituality and rich in futility. The film is a multinational creative collaboration: McCarthy is American, whilst Hillcoat, Guy Pearce and Nick Cave (music) are all Australian. Editor and screenwriter Joe Penhall, however, is from the UK.
The film has been very well received by the Italian press. Esquire writes that it is close to “the most important movie of the year”. Variety, in contrast, hated it. It stated the following: “The picture also should have been shocking, haunting and, at the end, deeply moving. As it is, director John Hillcoat and lenser Javier Aguirresarobe have come up with some arresting scorched-earth vistas captured on locations in Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Oregon, but have missed the bigger picture almost entirely.” The score of the film was also the subject of criticism: “Score by longtime Hillcoat collaborator Nick Cave and Warren Ellis borders on the treacly, softening the tone and further conventionalizing a film that should have gone the other direction toward something harsh and daring.” These comments, however, seem to be isolated voices in a generally positive chorus. Xan Brooks, for example, praises the film in The Guardian writing as “a slice of powerful horror well worth the wait”.
The film distributed by:
TRAILER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbLgszfXTAY
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