 Sam Willey established the UFO Radio News Network (UFNN) in May 2009. Sam has been researching the UFO subject since his first sighting in 2003. At the very early age of only 11 years Sam witnessed a UFO outside his home in the North East of England. Ever since that sighting in November 2003 Sam has been an avid researcher, sky watcher and seeker of the truth. Visit Sam's website www.ufo-radio.net. Email Sam willey.
|
UFO Digest Movie ReviewThe Roadby Sam Willey 
Posted: 18:34 January 24, 2010
Warning: Review contains spoilers
"By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." – Cormac McCarthy (The Road)
The Road is a heart wrenching tale of love and survival. It follows a young boy and his father on a post apocalyptic world, trying to make sense of life when all there is to live for is each other. They walk through the greyness of the world in search of food and other essentials, we so often take for granted. Along the way they encounter others with the same desperation and will to survive. At a time of such destruction there appears to be no clear cut distinction between good and evil.
The Road is adapted from a novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The novel was published in 2006 and won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. The Road adds to McCarthy’s other achievements, which include his 2005 novel ‘No Country for Old Men’ and his 1992 novel ‘All the Pretty Horses’, which was also made into a motion picture and won the National Book Award.
The movie adaption of The Road stars Viggo Mortensen, most famous for his role as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Mortensen plays the father in The Road. Director John Hillcoat was tasked with putting together McCarthy’s vision on the big screen, he was chosen by producer Nick Wechsler, who used independent financing to acquire film rights to adapt the novel. Wechsler chose Hillcoat after seeing his 2005 movie The Proposition. Wechsler was impressed by how beautifully Hillcoat presented the "stark primitive humanity of the West" in the movie. Being that The Road is in itself such a story of humanity in a world blasted into ruin, Hillcoat was certainly the man for the job. To truly bring the story to life a soundtrack was required; this task was taken up by Nick Cave along with Warren Ellis. Nick Cave is best known as being the front man of rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. He produced the classic track ‘Red Right Hand’ which has appeared on many motion pictures, including becoming the signature track of Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ franchise.
I read the book last year, as part of my English Literature course I am currently undertaking at college. I was simply blown away by McCarthy’s presentation of such a bleak, godless world which remains honest and true from start to finish. McCarthy does not attempt TO sugar coat such human desperation; he presents it to his readers with a sense of actuality in its rawest form. So of course when I found out the novel was being made into a motion picture, I feared the v ision of McCarthy could go to waste if presented the wrong way. I felt in order for the movie version of The Road to be a success it would have to stay true to the novel.
The story focuses entirely on the boy and the man with very few additional characters. The father and son relationship is delivered and developed with true grace over the course of the story and it is clear that the man only wishes to survive in order to protect his son. This protection I’m sure would be felt by any parent if the world were to be reduced to such rubble. As they travel the barren landscape the man carries with them, a pistol with only two bullets remaining. He tells the boy with brutal honesty that there is one bullet each, in other words if they time comes they must commit suicide than face the horrors of a slow death.
| Click on the 'NEXT' arrow for page 2 |
 |
|
Today:
Printer
friendly version
