Nothing busts canons quite like living in interesting times. In our ongoing Inflection Point series, we look back at the films that have taken on new relevance due to our ongoing cultural and political upheaval. Some beloved, some undiscovered, these titles deserve newfound consideration as film criticism evolves to meet the moment.
For four years, director John Hillcoat kept a journal detailing the lengthy production on “The Road.” From his first moments of pre-production to his final premiere, Hillcoat wrote at length about the challenges of adapting an award-winning book for the big screen. And when it was all over—when the film finally debuted for audiences around the country—Hillcoat’s reward for all his hard work was a global economic collapse. “The joke on set and in the edit suite was that we had to get this movie out before it became a reality,” Hillcoat told The Telegraph in 2010.
November 2009 may not have been the right time for an ambitious post-apocalyptic film depicting the doomed wanderings of a man and his son, but over time, Hillcoat’s debut American feature has come to stand out among the flashier works of Hollywood. Whereas many films about our doomed future tell grand tales of man’s heroism in the face of disaster, “The Road” depicts a more muted passing-of-the-torch between father and son. The Man’s generation may have ended the world, but it’s the Boy and those like him who will need to make sense of what’s left.
Over the past few decades, the post-apocalyptic film has effectively surpassed the Western as the prototypical American narrative. Just as the Western explored the mythic elements of America’s recent past, the post-apocalyptic film tackles the fractured possibilities of our future. Man is pitted against the elements, against lawlessness, even against his own physiological failings. In both cases, the heroes are meant to embody the most uplifting elements of our shared civilization. Progress—in the form of bibles, communities, or fresh water—is almost always positioned as redemptive.
And few filmmakers understand the importance of myth-making as well as Hillcoat. After a successful career shooting music videos, the Australian filmmaker shot to international prominence with “The Proposition,” his elegiac 2005 film about an outlaw forced to hunt his own brother. Like most Westerns, “The Proposition” seeks to mythologize the people who inhabited the fringes of pre-modern society. Unlike most Westerns, however, the characters are conscious of the link between the stories they inspire and the communities they terrorize.
It is this same approach that Hillcoat brings to “The Road,” his 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Like the book, “The Road” follows the travels of an unnamed Man (Viggo Mortensen) and Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they traverse the apocalyptic wastelands of America. Following the final wishes of the Man’s late wife (Charlize Theron)—that the two should travel south until they hit the coastline—the Man and the Boy brave cannibals, hunger, and natural disasters in a desperate search for something better than what they already have.
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Unlike other post-apocalyptic films of the 21st Century, there’s’ nothing glamorous about the wasteland that Man and Boy inhabit. It would be wrong to say that “The Road” is an ugly film—as the New York Times wrote in 2008, the film’s production department went to great lengths to discover perfect sites of urban decay—but the muted colors and sparse framing of Javier Aguirresarobe’s cinematography avoid all semblance of romance. Like “The Proposition,” “The Road” is a film of dirt and blood without any of the George Miller-esque panache we have come to expect from post-apocalyptic cinema.
And also like “The Proposition,” “The Road” is a film structured around beliefs. Throughout the movie, the Man passes along his own form of oral history to the Boy, justifying their survival actions by positioning themselves as heroes in some grand narrative. “Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice,” he explains through voiceover, “difficult as they are to remember.” These beliefs are meant to be of great comfort to the Boy; as the film unfolds, however, he begins to push back against his father’s teachings, noting the times when his father’s actions betray the principles he teaches.
Not that he can really help himself. “The Road” often suggests that our memories—the stories we tell ourselves about our shared communities and pasts—might do more harm than good. In one scene, the Man stumbles upon his childhood home and is overcome by memories. He runs his fingers along faded height charts and talks openly of the Christmases that he used to spend in the house. This worries the Boy. “I don’t think we should be doing this,” he whispers, instantly suspicious of the pull these memories have on his father. On some level, both men recognize that these echoes of the Man’s happiness are holding them back, but only the Boy is willing to make a clean break. He has never known another way.
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This tension between what was and what could be provides the generational framework for much of “The Road.” The Man may be the one with memories of a better society, but his innate distrust of others—and dependence on violence for strength—isolates the two travelers from the world around them. Conversely, the Boy’s occasional bouts of naiveté belie his understanding of his own future. The Man may be resigned to die in this new, post-apocalyptic Earth, but the Boy will be forced to live in it. His choices must be more reflective of his future than his past.
For all its nihilism, however, “The Road” ends on a positive note. In encountering a family willing to look after him as well as their own, the Boy is not only protected, he also sees his worldview validated. The film even suggests that the Boy’s new friends were wary of the Man; what may appear as survival instincts to one can come across as calculated acts of cruelty to another. Whatever the future looks like for the Boy, it will involve more than just a two-person support group. In the end, it is breaking with his father’s traditions that gives him the greatest chance at survival.
When post-apocalyptic films border on fantasy, they run the risk of feeling more like wish-fulfillment than sociological allegory. But by positioning “The Road” as a bleak exploration of the values we carry forward into a world teetering on the brink, John Hillcoat has crafted a poignant narrative of our influence on the next generation of survivors. “The Road” will continue to be the cinematic apocalypse we deserve, even if it’s the one we’re least likely to want to revisit.