VIGGO & THE FORGOTTEN "ROAD"

Viggo Mortensen in the house.

Saw a special screening of THE ROAD a while back and never got around to writing about it. I guess the reason I neglected to write about the film is the same reason everyone's neglected the film as a whole. This is a pitch dark piece of work. It's Schindler's List type of Darkness. It's the kind of film you watch once, process and never want to watch again. I put REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and SCHINDLER'S LIST in the Darkness category as well. They are all must watch films. "Musts" that every cinephile should ingest. But in all three cases, they are difficult films to revisit.

The Road is relentlessly bleak. It's the pure personification of hopelessness... and yet it ends on a somewhat hopeful note. Not enough has been said about Viggo Mortensen's performance. The consumate actor pulled a Bale and got himself sickeningly emaciated for the role. He looks like a man a few days away from death by starvation. Completely honest and believable performance. The boy (Kodi Smith-Mcphee) in the film who plays his son gives a very naturalistic performance. Actually I wouldn't call it a performance-- it's him. I don't think the boy was acting. There's one scene where a man is basically trying to steal Viggo's boy so he can have him for dinner. It's a world of cannibals. The lengths Viggo will go to save his Boy are what any father would do to preserve his perfect son in a dying world.

It's a sad, sad film that was too much darkness in what has been an all around shitty year for a lot of people. People wanted to be transported to a different world with vibrant colors and a happy ending. The Road got lost in the shuffle-- I'm guilty of it-- but it shouldn't have been.

After the film, Viggo was in attendance and I asked him when we would see the further adventures of Nicholai in the proposed EASTERN PROMISES sequel. He expressed much trepidation about the sequel that was in fact being written at this very moment. He expressed fear about how they would top the naked knife fight in the steam room sequence. What other appendages would director David Croneberg ask him to risk in the sequel? Viggo said sequels are rarely good and the only way he'd follow up EP is if it was as good as GODFATHER 2. But he did end by saying he would follow David Cronenberg anywhere. Even hell.

Your Friend,

D.