Directed by John Hillcoat
Certificate: 15
Runtime: 111 minutes
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BLEAK doesn’t begin to describe The Road, a new film based on Cormac McCarthy’s bestseller. In The Road some sort of apocalyptic catastrophe has hit the world draining it of all natural colour and wiping out all plant and animal life. We see the contrast between the past in the central character’s (Viggo Mortensen) dreams which interrupt his bouts of fitful sleep and the grim present as he and his son try to travel along the road to the sea, where they hope to find a better life.
Life is miserable and vicious. Gangs of marauders hunt the road in search of stragglers for meat. The only colour we see is red, the colour of blood. The little boy is hungry and confused. He wants his papa to reassure him that ‘we’re still the good guys’ and that they will never start to eat people.
Many films depict some kind of a journey. This has to be one of the most memorable. Some of the images are likely to haunt you for a very long time. It makes you think, what would you do if your current comfortable life came to a sudden end?
It happened to the man and his son in the film. It happened to the marauders who took a different bloody road from the central characters. In real life it happened to the citizens of Port au Prince in Haiti a few days before this film was released. An earthquake changed their lives utterly in just a few seconds. Please God, we’ll never have to find out.
Reviewed by David Kerr
Counter Culture 
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