"I'm just going to write because I can't help it."- Charlotte Brontë


Saturday, March 13, 2010

The Road is long

Well, I got to write (2.5 hours) and I got to clean and do the washing and read, and I got to go to the movies and see The Road and chat about it afterwards, so this day’s journey is almost done.

I must say that there’s nothing like a spot of post-apocalyptic bleakness to put life into perspective. What’s a bit of doof doof and ‘oooh, I can’t get to write when I want to because I have to share the world with other people’ compared with the misery of plodding through a dead world and having neighbours who want to hunt you down, hang you from a meat hook, carve you up for dinner and suck out your eyeballs for dessert.

I loved this movie as much as I loved the book. Cormac McCarthy’s wonderfully lyrical language was beautifully transformed by John Hillcoat into visual poetry – bleak poetry, granted, but poetry nonetheless. I even think the father's dreams worked better in the film, golden memories of happy, lazy times and everyday luxuries taken for granted juxtaposed with the ashen landscape and the grimness and horror and vast hopelessness of his waking life. And the ending was nicely handled.

It took a while, but I'm glad I finally got to see this film.

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