Denouement Renouement

Tag: 2.5 stars

  • Theme!: Disaster Movies — The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

    By C. Ramsay

    Much time is spent on characterization during the opening of The Poseidon Adventure, and though it is unclear whether or not this was the intention, it overwhelmingly involves traits that are negative. The vast majority of the characters are curmudgeonly, nosy, hyperactive, abusive, or any combination of, and it’s certainly an accomplishment that in opening the movie this way most viewers will still end up rooting and caring for the people we eventually follow.

    This counterbalanced characterization is successful because of how effectively the disaster components of the film are handled, which stem from the SS Poseidon being capsized by a wave from an undersea earthquake while on her final voyage before being decommissioned due to her age. The degree of peril is established, the fear of which the viewer can relate to more strongly than any amount of disaffection that might be experienced through dislike of the characters. The shift from a joyful New Year’s celebration aboard the ship to complete panic is instantaneous, and there is some inventive camera and stunt work implemented to portray the ship capsizing. It’s the eventual sinking of the ship that works as a built-in timer to fuel audience anxieties, and the mix of this countdown with semi-regular catastrophic sequences as the ship comes closer and closer to fully submerging adds to the tension that the characterization can sometimes detract from.

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  • Hooptober 12: Blood Quantum (2019)

    Film #27 — 3/5 Zombie Films

    By C. Ramsay

    Leading with a very accomplished, atmospheric opening in which community members of the Mi’kmaq reserve of Red Crow begin to realize that a zombie outbreak is spreading, Blood Quantum begins with a lot of promise. The cinematography in the first act is gorgeous, capturing the beauty of the landscape and treating the environment as its own character, or at least recognizing its agency. The camerawork features some forced perspective changes that are sickening in how they move, indicating an as yet unknowable danger flooding in and making the space feel oppressive no matter how open it is. Considering that the Indigenous population is immune to the outbreak plaguing the predominantly white population nearby, and that the environment is historically consistently mishandled when not under Indigenous stewardship, the spread of disease implied through the motion of the camera is a strong foundational component in the type of storytelling that one would hope would extend throughout the rest of the film.

    Regrettably, the effectiveness of the first act does not carry through as the camerawork is much more inventive with the landscapes than it is the people. Once the audience has been introduced to the core group of characters and the emphasis remains with them, the cinematography quickly feels dimmed and unsure of how to continue contributing to a storytelling style based as much on showing as it is telling. As a result, the back two thirds are bogged down by the amount of exposition they contain, leaving aspects such as generational trauma with underexplored nuance that make what should be load-bearing characterization feel surface-level.

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  • Hooptober 12: Black Mountain Side (2014)

    Film #22 — 1/1 Canadian Film; 9/9 Decades

    By C. Ramsay

    Featuring a premise that’s always fun to see new approaches to—an isolated group of people being slowly picked off by something or someone in an extremely remote area—Black Mountain Side is unfortunately unsuccessful in its addition to the catalogue. Sticking relentlessly to its slow pace, which serves more to simply wait out the story beats than it does to contribute to the atmosphere, an attempt is made to keep attention on the characters, but the mediocre acting means the film is constantly shoving a stick into its own spokes.

    The effort is felt right off the bat, and while thought behind the camerawork is appreciated, every single shot feels overly planned and meant to represent some deeper meaning, which becomes distracting very quickly. It seems like there was indecision around whether the camerawork should make the audience feel like a fly on the wall, held hostage to witness the events but helpless to do anything about them, or a member of the crew, equally at risk to what lurks in the shadows. Though it’s to be expected that John Carpenter’s The Thing would be inescapable for inspiration to some extent, certain characters here are stylized so similarly that a couple of the actors even have a physical resemblance through their physical features, facial hair, clothing, and mannerisms, which further works to remove the viewer from the moment rather than linking them to it.

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  • Hooptober 12: Razorback (1984)

    Film #15 — 1/1 The Animals Are Pissed at Us Film; 3/6 Countries (Australia)

    By C. Ramsay

    Primarily following an American couple who find themselves in Australia for different reasons, Razorback is about a giant wild boar that has made a small town and its surrounding area its hunting grounds. Featuring amusingly gruesome death sequences, the film implements lots of humour throughout, particularly through the use of some incredibly funny prop comedy.

    When tension is needed, a key shot is typically left running long so that the viewer can notice details in the background, allowing the audience to reach certain realizations at the same time as the characters. This works very effectively, yet this slow, simmering tension is almost always instantly obliterated to prioritize shock value.

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  • Hooptober 12: Panic in Year Zero! (1962)

    Film #5 — 1/2 Post-Apocalyptic Films; 4/9 Decades

    By C. Ramsay

    Commercializing the nuclear paranoia of the 1960s, Panic in Year Zero! centres on married couple Harry and Ann, as well as their two teenage children, as they witness the start of nuclear war while embarking on a family road trip outside of suburban Los Angeles. Fear of the Other, of societal fracturing, and of isolation are pivotal to the film’s interests, which are also aimed at highlighting the specifics of how these fears can so quickly come to fruition. Before the day is out for the Baldwin family, disaster capitalism is on the rise, individualistic attitudes are rampant, and panic is unavoidable. 

    The hypocrisy of American values is underscored fairly early on, with a radio broadcast reporting that “the president has called upon every American to do his duty in reestablishing law and order,” followed quickly by the completely contradictory statement that “there are no civilians. We are all at war.” The public’s understandable large-scale panic, resulting in mass migration and the frenzied purchasing of necessary supplies, is frequently disharmonized by the smaller, more individual instances of panic that typically culminate in dangerous speeding, theft and looting, and violent altercations. The inevitable death of the nuclear family at the advent of nuclear holocaust, along with its corresponding familial expectations, is briefly acknowledged when Ann Baldwin voices concern for her mother’s well-being back in Los Angeles and is promptly stymied by her husband triaging their own safety above his mother-in-law’s. Though he’s right in his priorities, he shuts down any word of his wife’s mother with such carelessness and lack of emotion, with her never being brought up again past an attempted phone call, that she reads more as a dead-end plot point than an exemplary subject of the film’s philosophy. Regrettably, any interest the film evokes from the audience in terms of what’s considered justified under extreme circumstances and where the line of no return is is never really explored more deeply than simply introducing the concepts as a means to progress the plot.

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