The "Liam Neeson fights wolves" movie, though it would more accurately be described as the "Liam Neeson tries unsuccessfully to lead a group of people away from wolves," movie.
Because he does fail. Fails miserably. Of the six people, besides Ottway (Neeson) himself, that survive the plane crash in the Alaskan wilderness at the start of the movie, none survive. Not one. His rationale for leaving the crash site and trekking through the woods is, 1) no search plane will find them here before they starve, and 2) to get out of the wolves' "kill radius", an area too close to the wolves' den for them to tolerate outsiders.
Given that at the end of the movie, Ottway has wandered right to the den, I half-expected a cut to a full search and rescue team scouring the crash site at that very moment. A real twist of the knife, like the end of that one film adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist.
But, I suppose it fits with what his character wrote at the beginning of the movie, that he feels he's stopped doing the world any good. He tried, tried to rally the survivors, keep them together, keep them alive through injuries and fear and very aggressive wolves and one guy's contrary asshole tendencies. Put all this knowledge he's acquired somewhere to work preserving lives. And he failed. The injuries slowed them down and the wolves took them. Or their makeshift equipment failed and the wolves took them. Or they just ran out of steam and stayed down, and the wolves took them.
It's clever of the movie that, the further they travel, the more the ice and snow begin to recede. At first they're just in a world of swirling white, but when they reach the trees, we mostly only see the trunks. Or it's dark, some the limbs and pine needles are just a dark mass. But then we start to see green, and there's a flowing stream. They aren't bundled up as tightly against the cold. The sun is coming out! Even though their numbers are dwindling, it feels like they're closer to escape, and then, surprise! Wolf den!
At one point, as the other survivors discuss what they have waiting for them, Ottway mentions he can't believe in the afterlife or God, though he wants to. Eventually, he does shout at the sky, demanding some sign, but not until after everyone else was dead. Which made me wonder what kind of sign he was looking for. A lightning bolt to smite him? A care package airdropped from a search plane that cracks his skull open? Either way, I suspect we're meant to infer where he ended up as the sign. That, having failed at protecting life, this is what he wanted: one last chance to take life.
Although, there were times, when Ottway would awaken and the position of the camera showed only him, I wondered if he was actually dreaming again. Or maybe this whole notion anyone survived was a fever dream, and he was the lone survivor. (Or a concussion. It wound up being hypoxia, but I thought the one guy's problem might have been he took a bad knock to the head in the crash and maybe there was brain bleeding or something.) Ottway was always the one carrying that sack full of wallets, preserve their memories, if not their lives.
That's maybe a little Aguirre, the Wrath of God - a man whose obsession ultimately severs him from reality - but, I mean, the wolf waits for him to do his battle prep, when the wolves seemed content to attack any time they dropped their guard up to the point. Now they wait for him to get ready?
No comments:
Post a Comment