The Impossible (2012)is
not the first film to use the Asian Tsunami as the basis for a plot-line. Matt
Damon's Hereafter (2010) has one
character who has survived the tsunami. But the English-language Spanish-made
film, The Impossible, is based
on the experiences a real family from Spain who survive the experience. Many actual
survivors have seen the film and praise its use of detail to help the viewer
see life as it was for them.
For anyone who missed it, on December 26, 2004, an underwater earthquake in Indonesia sent tidal waves across the Indian Ocean which affected many major beach resorts. One of the hardest hit areas was in Thailand, particularly the island resort of Phuket.
In all 227,898 people are believed to have died as a result of the Asian Tsunami.
The film is not a typical disaster film where you can pick out who is going to die and who will survive. Instead, the film becomes a personal testament to the survival of the family. The film begins with the family arriving in Phuket for their Christmas vacation. As they celebrate Christmas day, the family participates in a balloon lighting ceremony that one survivor later mentioned in a blog, specifically saying, “I was at the same ceremony. … I experienced the same thing.”
For anyone who missed it, on December 26, 2004, an underwater earthquake in Indonesia sent tidal waves across the Indian Ocean which affected many major beach resorts. One of the hardest hit areas was in Thailand, particularly the island resort of Phuket.
In all 227,898 people are believed to have died as a result of the Asian Tsunami.
The film is not a typical disaster film where you can pick out who is going to die and who will survive. Instead, the film becomes a personal testament to the survival of the family. The film begins with the family arriving in Phuket for their Christmas vacation. As they celebrate Christmas day, the family participates in a balloon lighting ceremony that one survivor later mentioned in a blog, specifically saying, “I was at the same ceremony. … I experienced the same thing.”
The next day, December 26, proved a beautiful sunny day. At
10 a.m. the first wave hit the shoreline flooding all areas inland. Many of the
beach resorts never had a chance. A wall of water some 18-feet tall hit the
area killing thousands. In at least two assaults, the survivors had to battle
swift moving currents, broken glass and metal, debris, cars, power lines,
bushes, and bodies.
In the initial onslaught, mother Maria (Naomi Watts) is swept away with her eldest son, Lucas (Thomas Holland). She is badly injured from all the debris. As they struggle to come together in the strong currents, they are hit with a second major wave. Their initial goal for survival is to climb a tree which is still standing in the water.
One of the themes that the film develops is the idea of how others in a tragedy must help each other. As the mother and son are trying to swim to the tree, they hear a Swedish baby calling for his parents. While Lucas tries to convince his mother that they must only worry about saving themselves, Maria makes it clear to him that it is their duty to save the child also. "What if he were your brother?" she asks. That act of charity replays itself several times during the film as Lucas grows to learn that in the face of tragedy one has a human need to help others.
After being rescued by the locals, the two end up at the hospital where bodies are stacked in rows of bags and the resources are strained beyond rational understanding. Another common thread throughout the movie is the vast variety of people affected. Person after person struggles to communicate and we get a sense of the Tower of Babel where no one speaks the other’s language. That need to overcome language barriers becomes an important element to the disaster.
Maria, critically ill but trained as a doctor, sends Lucas off to help others. He ends up becoming the legs for many survivors, combing the hospital for the lost. Triumphantly he reunites one man and his son even though he cannot speak their language. But he becomes inconsolable when he returns to his mother's bed and finds her missing.
A third obvious theme of the film is the devastating effects feelings of abandonment have on the survivors, a universal feeling of many of the families who went through the tsunami. One survivor on a blog writes of how unusual it was for an entire family to survive unscathed. That sense of being alone in the world resonates throughout the film.
Back in one of the resort hotels, now looking like a bombed out war zone, father Henry (Ewan McGregor), having saved his two youngest sons, continues to search for Maria and Lucas. Another survivor with a cellphone allows Henry to call his overseas family to give them news. Survivors spoke of the incredulity people had believing how bad the situation was.
Constantly people looking like shell-shocked refugees (which they were), they try to offer comfort to others--hands reach to touch and looks offer kindness in a communal experience of suffering. At one point Henry decides he must leave his sons behind in the care of a couple who say they will watch over his two boys. When Henry tells his eight year old that he must take care of his brother, the boy heart-breakingly pleads with him saying, "I've never looked after anyone." But he learns to become his brother's keeper.
Henry eventually becomes separated from the boys and his search in the chaos of the hospital trying to find his family becomes Dickensian in proportion.
"Why should I see a film about a devastating tsunami?" you might well ask. The film is about the endurance of the human spirit in spite of adversity. The film reminds one of how suddenly all we hold precious can be lost. This is story of not just one family but representative of thousands of experiences, and attention should be paid to all they went through. As people have said of the learning about the Holocaust, attention must be paid and others must be witness to what has happened.
Special note should be paid to incredible sound design of the film. While the real tsunami lasted four hours for those who survived, the film compresses the experience into a 10 minute devastatingly real sequence.
In the initial onslaught, mother Maria (Naomi Watts) is swept away with her eldest son, Lucas (Thomas Holland). She is badly injured from all the debris. As they struggle to come together in the strong currents, they are hit with a second major wave. Their initial goal for survival is to climb a tree which is still standing in the water.
One of the themes that the film develops is the idea of how others in a tragedy must help each other. As the mother and son are trying to swim to the tree, they hear a Swedish baby calling for his parents. While Lucas tries to convince his mother that they must only worry about saving themselves, Maria makes it clear to him that it is their duty to save the child also. "What if he were your brother?" she asks. That act of charity replays itself several times during the film as Lucas grows to learn that in the face of tragedy one has a human need to help others.
After being rescued by the locals, the two end up at the hospital where bodies are stacked in rows of bags and the resources are strained beyond rational understanding. Another common thread throughout the movie is the vast variety of people affected. Person after person struggles to communicate and we get a sense of the Tower of Babel where no one speaks the other’s language. That need to overcome language barriers becomes an important element to the disaster.
Maria, critically ill but trained as a doctor, sends Lucas off to help others. He ends up becoming the legs for many survivors, combing the hospital for the lost. Triumphantly he reunites one man and his son even though he cannot speak their language. But he becomes inconsolable when he returns to his mother's bed and finds her missing.
A third obvious theme of the film is the devastating effects feelings of abandonment have on the survivors, a universal feeling of many of the families who went through the tsunami. One survivor on a blog writes of how unusual it was for an entire family to survive unscathed. That sense of being alone in the world resonates throughout the film.
Back in one of the resort hotels, now looking like a bombed out war zone, father Henry (Ewan McGregor), having saved his two youngest sons, continues to search for Maria and Lucas. Another survivor with a cellphone allows Henry to call his overseas family to give them news. Survivors spoke of the incredulity people had believing how bad the situation was.
Constantly people looking like shell-shocked refugees (which they were), they try to offer comfort to others--hands reach to touch and looks offer kindness in a communal experience of suffering. At one point Henry decides he must leave his sons behind in the care of a couple who say they will watch over his two boys. When Henry tells his eight year old that he must take care of his brother, the boy heart-breakingly pleads with him saying, "I've never looked after anyone." But he learns to become his brother's keeper.
Henry eventually becomes separated from the boys and his search in the chaos of the hospital trying to find his family becomes Dickensian in proportion.
"Why should I see a film about a devastating tsunami?" you might well ask. The film is about the endurance of the human spirit in spite of adversity. The film reminds one of how suddenly all we hold precious can be lost. This is story of not just one family but representative of thousands of experiences, and attention should be paid to all they went through. As people have said of the learning about the Holocaust, attention must be paid and others must be witness to what has happened.
Special note should be paid to incredible sound design of the film. While the real tsunami lasted four hours for those who survived, the film compresses the experience into a 10 minute devastatingly real sequence.
 |
| The filming of the tsunami involved model work with 1:3 inch scale model and a pool. |
director Juan Antonio Bayona "wanted supervising sound editor Oriol
Tarragó to create a sound design that wouldn't have any music. After many
experiments, Tarragó came up with the concept of having a different sound for
each shot of the tsunami sequence."
"’Every shot has a different point of view, so I tried the idea of making a contrast between every shot, like high and low frequencies and volumes,’ he said. ‘We collected different sounds from waterfalls and underwater recordings.’”
At some points as the film becomes highly subjective and tries to take the viewer inside the character's reaction to things. For example, the film grows silent suggesting the character's inability to process what was happening.
The real Maria Belon, on whom Naomi Watts' character is based, had told the production team that when the water first hit, she didn't really know what she was hearing. She thought it sounded like a bunch of low flying planes coming inland.
"Tarragó also used 'sounds like a far-off plane flying when the water is coming to the resort. We also used the vibration sounds of glass and animals running and birds flying because they could feel what was going on.'"
The sequence proved real to Belon and many other survivors who write of the details that give life to the film experience.
Maria Belon was described as shocked by the underwater sequence "because for her that was the perfect metaphor of what was life, how you cannot control your destiny. ... You are only dragged by the current."
Afterthought:
"’Every shot has a different point of view, so I tried the idea of making a contrast between every shot, like high and low frequencies and volumes,’ he said. ‘We collected different sounds from waterfalls and underwater recordings.’”
At some points as the film becomes highly subjective and tries to take the viewer inside the character's reaction to things. For example, the film grows silent suggesting the character's inability to process what was happening.
The real Maria Belon, on whom Naomi Watts' character is based, had told the production team that when the water first hit, she didn't really know what she was hearing. She thought it sounded like a bunch of low flying planes coming inland.
"Tarragó also used 'sounds like a far-off plane flying when the water is coming to the resort. We also used the vibration sounds of glass and animals running and birds flying because they could feel what was going on.'"
The sequence proved real to Belon and many other survivors who write of the details that give life to the film experience.
Maria Belon was described as shocked by the underwater sequence "because for her that was the perfect metaphor of what was life, how you cannot control your destiny. ... You are only dragged by the current."
Afterthought:
I read a review of the film where the reviewer was
criticizing the movie because it focused on a European family who survived. As
Roger Ebert once stated: “Criticize the movie you saw, not the movie that you
wanted to see.”
To learn more about other survivors’ experiences on Phuket, you
might find the survivor website started by blogger/reporter Rick von Feldt: http://www.phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2004/12/surviving-tsumani-part-1-first-letter.html?m=1
To get a full understanding of the experience, read from the back forward.
To get a full understanding of the experience, read from the back forward.
The Impossible (2012) *****
David , I just found your blog and will go back and look at your older postings - if you haven't yet you need to watch http://www.beastsofthesouthernwild.com/
ReplyDeleteMaurice