Tuesday | February 16, 2010 | 2:00 pm
Monday Afternoon Review: ‘The Quiet Earth’ I know it’s not Monday. Just disregard that. The point of these Monday afternoon reviews is for me to reveal to you some of those hidden gems out there that (hopefully) many of you have not seen. So just because it’s Tuesday doesn’t mean I can’t try to accomplish that goal; I also just like the way Monday Afternoon Review sounds (though any Afternoon Review is fine by me). Anyways, over the weekend I took the opportunity to sit down and watch one of the hundreds of movies I have that I’ve yet to see. In the spirit of the recently revealed Fallout: New Vegas trailer and my return to playing Fallout 3, I was in the mood for something post apocalyptic. I have a pretty awesome collection of apocalyptic sci fi flicks by most standards, including all of the fantastic made for TV movies that came out in the 80s, including BBC’s Threads and the 1983 ABC movie The Day After. Beyond that I probably have about 30 others that range from cheesy 70s b-movie, to brilliant avant-garde arthouse films. So where was I to start? I knew of a few that I wanted to see, but none of them that really stuck out as films that people would watch and say “holy shit, why haven’t I seen this before?” So, being thrifty like the ex-boy scout I am, I headed over to post apocalypse central, QuietEarth.com, to check out their full list of post apocalyptic movies. From there all it took was the revelation that this site was actually named after one of their favorite sci fi films, and I had that film on my computer, ready to be viewed. Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth may very well be the blueprint for what truly great post apocalyptic cinema should be. The Quiet Earth is a film that clearly splits audiences along a fine line. There’s several pieces of the plot and different portions of dialogue that many people tend to pick apart and brutally criticize. I’ll beghin this review by saying that The Quiet Earth is by no means a masterfully crafted piece of artwork. It works on the same philosophical level as movies like Cube or some of the more in depth analyses of Tron. It’s given a bit more credence, however, because of it’s lack of bad special effects and cheesy acting. This is where the film really shines. Its amateurish nature is almost entirely overshadowed by its huge, and nearly accomplished, ambitions. There are still reminders throughout that it is an 80s movie and it isn’t made by Stanley Kubrick (as Mr. Murphy might like us to believe), but overall, the film’s ability to pull us into an entirely immersive and mystifying world with a budget just under a million is incredibly admirable. The film is most effective at portraying a world in which human beings have simply up and left. Zac Hobson (played by Bruno Lawrence) awakens one day to a mysteriously quiet town. As he dresses and prepares for work and heads out in his car, we are immediately entranced by the eeriness of the situation. He rolls through searching for any sign of life, only to come to the conclusion that he may very well be the last man on earth. Long after we figure this out, however, we are still holding on for Zac, hoping and praying that he finds someone, anyone at all, in any of the gas stations or abandoned cars along the roadway. The landscape is utterly lifeless, and the cinematogrpahy and sounds editing enhance this to an incredible degree. Sounds that would otherwise be disregarded as having a simple explanation suddenly become the most frightening things one can encounter in the wasteland. The audio in this film is an experience in and of itself. It comes to the point where our hero finds himself rigging up loudspeakers and playing recordings of birds only to hear the sounds of life. The desolation becomes so real, that any interruption by Lawrence’s acting or character becomes somewhat comical. I think this is where a lot of the nitpicking comes from. When he discovers that he may be the last man alive on the planet, Zac slips into an isolation fueled bout of megalomania, staking his claim as the new God. Scenes of him running into a church with a shotgun, blasting away at Christ screaming “now I’m God” or him preacing and ranting to cardboard cutouts of famous historical figures are often criticized for being overly blatant in their symbolism and somewhat silly. To this I only have to say that the scenes are not entirely about the symbolism. Both of these examples, and many more instances throughout the movie, can be explained by Zac’s desperate attempt to feel any freedom from the crippling isolation of being the last man on earth. Sure, what he is doing has symbolism, and sometimes even he knows that, but he also knows that these are the actions that will keep him focused on day to day life, even if day to day life has turned into him living in a mansion and wearing women’s clothing. The seond half of the film focuses less on the nature of isolation and Zac’s desperate attempt for survival, and more on the love triangle that develops between him and two newly introduced characters, Joanne and Api. After the moment of Joanne’s introduction, and even more so after Api’s introduction, the film becomes much less poetic than it initially started out, but still maintains a feeling of edginess throughout. This, however, comes from the newly found dependence these characters have on each other, rather than the dependence Zac has on himself. It now feels as though because he found these people, if he loses them, he loses everything. It’s this intesnity that keeps the second half rolling, though honestly, the film could have done without the love triangle. This is one of the points many of the opponent’s have that I don’t disagree with. In defense of the film though, it seems as though all the characters are of the understanding that they need to at least try and repopulate, so the pressure is on, and being humans, they can’t avoid letting emotion get in the way. The only thing left open in the film that I can really see making a point to mention, is the lack of explanation for Alison Routledge’s character Joanne to play her obnoxious and somewhat detrimental mind games with the two men. Earlier in the film she discusses her belief that a person’s mind can make up whether or not they are phsyically beautiful; a person can be smart and ugly, or beautiful and dumb, or, if they are very lucky, incredibly intelligent and very beautiful. Typically we would associate a pretty, but dumb girl with the type of bimbo who just sleeps around with any strong guy she comes across. Joanne’s knack for loving Api’s displays of strong-man power and her near death incident with a hairdryer leads me to believe that she’s this type of person, though it’s never really explained in the film. The love triangle is eventually left wide open for this reason, without any real conclusion. The last point about the film that many fans have desperately attempted to stand up for is its elusive and mysterious ending. Many claim that the ending is a complete cop out and that it’s there only because the film makers had no idea how to finish the film. I can’t agree with this. The ending is astonishing, and I will leave it at that for fear of giving away any major plot points. The main character gets everything he deserves, and while we are left to ponder the fate of the other two, we can only assume that they are somewhere far, far, far away. while it is confusing, and it does recall that efforts of 2001: A Space Odyssey it still gives the audience a chance to view the overwhelming magnitude of what Zac was actually working on, and what human beings had actually done to their world. The Quiet Earth is a fantastic film by all means, providing us with an in depth look at the ultimate form of isolation and what that does to different personality types (though two of them we only see after they make human contact again). Beyond that, it serves as a very decent commentary on the proliferation of earth shattering weaponry and what great power can do in the wrong hands. While it does have it’s moments of silliness and some illogical, overly contrived plot points, it functions beautifully in an enchanting 1980s kind of way. As a sci fi film, it gives fans everything that they desire out of a good post apocalyptic flick, including an ending that will have you scratching your head, wondering exaclt what happened, and why. The Quiet Earth: 8.7/10 -William Gutheil

Monday Afternoon Review: ‘The Quiet Earth’

I know it’s not Monday. Just disregard that. The point of these Monday afternoon reviews is for me to reveal to you some of those hidden gems out there that (hopefully) many of you have not seen. So just because it’s Tuesday doesn’t mean I can’t try to accomplish that goal; I also just like the way Monday Afternoon Review sounds (though any Afternoon Review is fine by me). Anyways, over the weekend I took the opportunity to sit down and watch one of the hundreds of movies I have that I’ve yet to see. In the spirit of the recently revealed Fallout: New Vegas trailer and my return to playing Fallout 3, I was in the mood for something post apocalyptic. I have a pretty awesome collection of apocalyptic sci fi flicks by most standards, including all of the fantastic made for TV movies that came out in the 80s, including BBC’s Threads and the 1983 ABC movie The Day After. Beyond that I probably have about 30 others that range from cheesy 70s b-movie, to brilliant avant-garde arthouse films. So where was I to start? I knew of a few that I wanted to see, but none of them that really stuck out as films that people would watch and say “holy shit, why haven’t I seen this before?” So, being thrifty like the ex-boy scout I am, I headed over to post apocalypse central, QuietEarth.com, to check out their full list of post apocalyptic movies. From there all it took was the revelation that this site was actually named after one of their favorite sci fi films, and I had that film on my computer, ready to be viewed. Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth may very well be the blueprint for what truly great post apocalyptic cinema should be.

The Quiet Earth is a film that clearly splits audiences along a fine line. There’s several pieces of the plot and different portions of dialogue that many people tend to pick apart and brutally criticize. I’ll beghin this review by saying that The Quiet Earth is by no means a masterfully crafted piece of artwork. It works on the same philosophical level as movies like Cube or some of the more in depth analyses of Tron. It’s given a bit more credence, however, because of it’s lack of bad special effects and cheesy acting. This is where the film really shines. Its amateurish nature is almost entirely overshadowed by its huge, and nearly accomplished, ambitions. There are still reminders throughout that it is an 80s movie and it isn’t made by Stanley Kubrick (as Mr. Murphy might like us to believe), but overall, the film’s ability to pull us into an entirely immersive and mystifying world with a budget just under a million is incredibly admirable.

The film is most effective at portraying a world in which human beings have simply up and left. Zac Hobson (played by Bruno Lawrence) awakens one day to a mysteriously quiet town. As he dresses and prepares for work and heads out in his car, we are immediately entranced by the eeriness of the situation. He rolls through searching for any sign of life, only to come to the conclusion that he may very well be the last man on earth. Long after we figure this out, however, we are still holding on for Zac, hoping and praying that he finds someone, anyone at all, in any of the gas stations or abandoned cars along the roadway. The landscape is utterly lifeless, and the cinematogrpahy and sounds editing enhance this to an incredible degree. Sounds that would otherwise be disregarded as having a simple explanation suddenly become the most frightening things one can encounter in the wasteland. The audio in this film is an experience in and of itself. It comes to the point where our hero finds himself rigging up loudspeakers and playing recordings of birds only to hear the sounds of life. The desolation becomes so real, that any interruption by Lawrence’s acting or character becomes somewhat comical. I think this is where a lot of the nitpicking comes from. When he discovers that he may be the last man alive on the planet, Zac slips into an isolation fueled bout of megalomania, staking his claim as the new God. Scenes of him running into a church with a shotgun, blasting away at Christ screaming “now I’m God” or him preacing and ranting to cardboard cutouts of famous historical figures are often criticized for being overly blatant in their symbolism and somewhat silly. To this I only have to say that the scenes are not entirely about the symbolism. Both of these examples, and many more instances throughout the movie, can be explained by Zac’s desperate attempt to feel any freedom from the crippling isolation of being the last man on earth. Sure, what he is doing has symbolism, and sometimes even he knows that, but he also knows that these are the actions that will keep him focused on day to day life, even if day to day life has turned into him living in a mansion and wearing women’s clothing.

The seond half of the film focuses less on the nature of isolation and Zac’s desperate attempt for survival, and more on the love triangle that develops between him and two newly introduced characters, Joanne and Api. After the moment of Joanne’s introduction, and even more so after Api’s introduction, the film becomes much less poetic than it initially started out, but still maintains a feeling of edginess throughout. This, however, comes from the newly found dependence these characters have on each other, rather than the dependence Zac has on himself. It now feels as though because he found these people, if he loses them, he loses everything. It’s this intesnity that keeps the second half rolling, though honestly, the film could have done without the love triangle. This is one of the points many of the opponent’s have that I don’t disagree with. In defense of the film though, it seems as though all the characters are of the understanding that they need to at least try and repopulate, so the pressure is on, and being humans, they can’t avoid letting emotion get in the way. The only thing left open in the film that I can really see making a point to mention, is the lack of explanation for Alison Routledge’s character Joanne to play her obnoxious and somewhat detrimental mind games with the two men. Earlier in the film she discusses her belief that a person’s mind can make up whether or not they are phsyically beautiful; a person can be smart and ugly, or beautiful and dumb, or, if they are very lucky, incredibly intelligent and very beautiful. Typically we would associate a pretty, but dumb girl with the type of bimbo who just sleeps around with any strong guy she comes across. Joanne’s knack for loving Api’s displays of strong-man power and her near death incident with a hairdryer leads me to believe that she’s this type of person, though it’s never really explained in the film. The love triangle is eventually left wide open for this reason, without any real conclusion.

The last point about the film that many fans have desperately attempted to stand up for is its elusive and mysterious ending. Many claim that the ending is a complete cop out and that it’s there only because the film makers had no idea how to finish the film. I can’t agree with this. The ending is astonishing, and I will leave it at that for fear of giving away any major plot points. The main character gets everything he deserves, and while we are left to ponder the fate of the other two, we can only assume that they are somewhere far, far, far away. while it is confusing, and it does recall that efforts of 2001: A Space Odyssey it still gives the audience a chance to view the overwhelming magnitude of what Zac was actually working on, and what human beings had actually done to their world. The Quiet Earth is a fantastic film by all means, providing us with an in depth look at the ultimate form of isolation and what that does to different personality types (though two of them we only see after they make human contact again). Beyond that, it serves as a very decent commentary on the proliferation of earth shattering weaponry and what great power can do in the wrong hands. While it does have it’s moments of silliness and some illogical, overly contrived plot points, it functions beautifully in an enchanting 1980s kind of way. As a sci fi film, it gives fans everything that they desire out of a good post apocalyptic flick, including an ending that will have you scratching your head, wondering exaclt what happened, and why.

The Quiet Earth: 8.7/10

-William Gutheil

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