film reviews, of a sort...
The Ruins
Directed by Carter Smith
Script by Scott B. Smith, from his novel
The was a time, years ago, when horror movies were actually about something. In those days we had vastly talented directors with names like Romero, Craven, and Hooper who recognized that they worked in a critically ignored genre and thus felt free to explore what they believed was wrong in society through the fine frisson of their deeply disturbing stories and unforgettable images. In our culture today, we live in a world drained of any meaning, a world were the likes of Eli Roth are considered the new face of horror, - and actually treated like they have something meaningful to offer both art and society - but are really the face of a deadening banality, an artifact of culture long past caring about anything but their new toys - the supreme gloss of the huckster's vision that obscures everything these days.
From this, somehow, comes a film from writer Scott Smith, who penned the novel/film A Simple Plan 13 years ago. Like all recent cultural artifacts, The Ruins is about nothing more than that what it is - a shiny bauble. But an exquisite bauble, indeed. This is a horror film for fans of the genre and it works very well. Director Carter Smith takes an refreshing tack: he avoids many of the tedious expectations of the genre right from the beginning. The four protagonists are easy narrative targets, young, American, on holiday in a foreign country, drinking on the beach, but instead of treating them as simple fodder, he invests them with a decency that is surprising. In a low-key way we see them as blandly likable, flawed, but very human. In an event that surprised me, one of the characters, very drunk and mildly rebuffed by her boy friend, is on the verge of kissing another guy and her friends step in, preventing this minor slip and, potentially, a much more serious one. Even the guy she is coming on to is reluctant to accept her as he also recognizes the wrongness of her actions as well as the disinclination to take advantage of someone who is not in full possession of the faculties. This may seem a minor thing, but it is outside the usual moral scope of most of these films, where you rarely see decisions of this nature concerning the characters or their motivations.
The film develops in a careful and deliberate manner that feels more like a documentary than a horror film, particularly with Darius Khondji's raw, high noon cinematography that lends a certain bleached realism and elegance to the events. There is a moment, early on, the group in the back of a pick-up truck, heading into the jungle and the wind blows a cowboy hat off one of the character's head, depositing it on the road. The camera stays with the hat as it settles tilting gently on the ground, holding the shot for a long time as the truck recedes into the distance, gradually becoming obscured in the gathering dust and green of the jungle. It is a quiet, eerie moment, not showy, and indicative of the way in which this director works, carefully allowing the story to unwind at its own deliberate pace.
"Four Americans on vacation don't just disappear!"
And then, after a nod to Deliverance, all hell breaks lose and we are thrown into the frenzied middle of a situation we don't understand and then into stasis and the films follows this pulsing rhythm as the director carefully builds tension and an sense of dread that is quite remarkable. There are few moments, well handled and necessary, of flinching eye-closing gore but mostly the unease builds gradually, the horror unbearable at moments, the tension like music, expertly played. This is very well made and quite scary film.
What seems to interest the director and what really makes this film so effective is that it renders the intense and difficult moral decisions that characters have to make so well. Though the story is preposterous (you won't care), the decisions that have to be made are frequently excruciating and we share the characters pain. This is perhaps the most effective part of the film and what elevates it slightly beyond what it is. I don't want to say more, as knowing too much of the story will ruin things. Best to let it unwind. This is a film that is definitely worth a look - much better than you would expect.
I wish I could say it was about something, but these days perhaps this is the best we can hope for.
other views:
news:
My review of Street Kings
is up; as is a review of the decidedly non-criminal but quite good The Ruins.
film reviews:
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Upcoming Reviews
I am in the process of reading Jack O'Connell's excellent (so far) Box Nine. Next up is Martyn Waites' Bone Machine and local author Kay Stewart and Chris Bullock's A Deadly Little List. When I get around to it, I may write an essay on the
work of Don Winslow.
