Two Kinds of Apocalypse

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Through DVD rental, I recently saw two films which took a similar premise in very different directions.  The contrast between them is interesting.  In every era, from ancient campfire tales to modern cinema, people have sought to understand the human condition through storytelling.  Here we have two movies that explore the extremes of human motivation upon the bleak stage of Armageddon.

One film, The Road, is set in the aftermath of what appears to have been some kind of natural cataclysm, perhaps an extinction-level meteor strike.  The sky has become a coffin lid of impenetrable cloud, and the world is freezing to death.  Plants won’t grow, the animals have all died, the ground is tortured by savage earthquakes, and the desperate remains of the human race have taken to feeding upon each other.  Across this funereal landscape walk a nameless father and son, determined to follow an uncertain path across broken highways until they reach the coast, where there might be warmth and some remnant of civilization.  “Hope” is too strong a word for their motivation – the father marches grimly onward to fulfill his last promise to his wife, who asked him to take the boy to the coast before she killed herself by wandering into the frozen, hungry night.

The other film, The Book of Eli, is set in the sterile wasteland of a global war, fought at least partially over religion.  One of the intriguing differences between the movies is that Eli’s world is painfully bright, the opposite of The Road’s frozen gloom.  Many survivors were blinded by the doomsday weapons and their effect on the atmosphere.  Sunglasses are vital survival gear.  A mysterious loner named Eli marches through the searing ruins, carrying what might be the last intact Bible in the world.  (There is an amazing surprise waiting at the end of this story, but it is not the identity of the book – that’s made clear very early in the tale.)  Unlike the desperate wanderers of The Road, Eli is filled with clear and terrible purpose.  He is also heading to the coast, the Pacific Coast to be exact, because he believes God has told him to carry his book there.

Both of these movies are allegories about purpose, a fitting topic to consider among the ruins of a world that barely survived the apocalypse.  The Road is an epilogue for the human race, arguing that purpose is the minimal requirement for human survival.  We must find a reason to go on.  Even the smallest reasons will do.  If we stop moving – if we collapse at the side of The Road, unable to talk ourselves into taking the next step – we stop living, and begin decomposing.  By filling the wilderness with starving cannibals, The Road cautions us not to seek our purpose in the hearts of others, or depend on them to carry us when we stumble… but in the end, it also suggests that we must be prepared to put some faith in other people, after carefully taking their measure.  A father can hope that his son might find worthy companions and build a better world, even though the odds are stacked powerfully against them.

The Book of Eli presents a nobler vision of transcendent purpose.  Eli is a living message of faith.  He places his trust completely in God, and by extension, acts out of love for his fellow man… which is quite a leap from the lion’s head, given how feral most of them have become.  To predatory survivors chiseling a meager existence from the wasteland, Eli’s unshakeable dedication to his mission seems absolutely insane… but listen to his conversations with them carefully, and you’ll realize they could improve their lives immeasurably by following his example, even if they never turned the first page of his book.  The villain of the story wields power over his subjects through the simple expedient of giving them something to do.  He is convinced he can wield totalitarian power by using the secrets of the Bible to build an empire, but he’s as blind as anyone who looked into the doomsday weapons, because he doesn’t recognize realpower when it walks into his living room and politely refuses the temptations he offers.

The heroes of the two movies are very different men, both portrayed by outstanding actors.  The father in The Road,played by a skeletal Viggo Mortensen, is a starving wretch whose only defense against the terrors of his dying world is a revolver with two bullets – which he intents to use on himself and his son, if they fail to outrun the cannibals.  He prudently hides from danger, and long ago made a bitter peace with his inability to rescue anyone except his boy.  Mortensen conveys the sense that a little piece of his soul is nevertheless extinguished, each time he’s forced to watch something horrible.  Eventually, he must do something horrible, to teach his son a lesson about the danger of mercy in a world where stealing somebody’s gear is no less fatal than cutting their throats.  It’s just a marginally slower form of execution.

The Book of Eli rests on the capable shoulders of Denzel Washington, one of the few actors who could make such a quiet and lonely figure so compelling.   While he is also an occasional bystander to atrocity, because he can’t let himself be distracted from his mission, Eli is far from helpless.  His fighting skills are astonishing.  He solemnly pronounces Biblical judgment on those who seek to block his path… then unleashes Old Testament devastation upon them.  The success of his mission does not rest entirely on his combat ability, since he can’t slay every monster in the world, any more than Viggo Mortensen’s frail and frightened nomad could.  Pondering what these two characters would say to each other makes for an interesting daydream.  They might agree that planting one good seed is more important than cutting down a thousand weeds of corruption.

The critical reaction to the two films was very different.  The Road enjoyed generally strong reviews.  It’s very well made, but it’s also one of the most bleak, existentially depressing stories ever told.  Many critics celebrated its uncompromising nihilism, but they were missing the point of the story – it’s about the butterfly wings of purpose and meaning, fluttering through an ice storm of despair and entropy.

The much more upbeat Book of Eli was savaged by critics, for the fairly obvious reason that it takes religious faith seriously.  Read some reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, and you’ll get the impression the authors were personally offended by the movie.  It’s widely accused of being preachy, but it’s nothing of the sort – Eli is too busy thumping motorcycle bandits to thump his Bible.  He does quote from it a few times, and if you follow his journey, you’ll see just howthoroughly he understands it.  You may also gain a new appreciation for Denzel Washington’s acting discipline.

It’s worth watching both The Road and The Book of Eli to compare them.  (I suggest arranging the double feature in that order.  You’re going to need something to make you feel less helpless after you watch The Road, and watching Eli destroy a pack of murderous scavengers should hit the spot.)  It could be said that both stories have the same ending. The Road phrases it as a question, while The Book of Eli provides an equally haunting answer.

Note: Please refrain from posting explicit spoilers about either of these movies in the comments, out of consideration for readers who may not have seen them yet.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.

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