[This film has recently been released to cable. -ecl]
THE QUIET EARTH
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1986 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Last survivors on Earth have to figure out
what has happened to everyone else. Some intriguing ideas but the
basic plot is old hat.
In 1951 Arch Oboler made the film FIVE about a limited number of people who had survived a nuclear war. Every so often Hollywood makes another film about the last handful of people in a post-holocaust world. Notable was THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL, a 1958 film with Harry Belafonte and Mel Ferrer as the last people on Earth and of course in a love triangle. The same situation arose in THE LAST WOMAN ON EARTH, a Roger Corman quickie made in 1960. In the '58 film an experimental super-bomb apparently dissolved everyone; in the '60 film something in the air did the same. In a TV movie called WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE? a solar flare does the honors.
Most recently it was New Zealand doing the three- survivor film. THE QUIET EARTH is a film that very much resembles THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL. Once again we have white man/white woman/black man as the last people on Earth with the two men competing for the affections of the last woman. If this plot had to be done again, at least it was done with quality filmmaking and some style. The characters are better than the 50's stereotypes of the previous film versions.
What sets this film apart is the force that de-populated the world. Since the explanation is the most intriguing part of the film I will avoid spoiling it here. I came out of the film saying 1) the cause could not have happened, 2) given that it did happen there could not have been *any* survivors, 3) given that there were survivors what made the difference between who survived and who didn't is absurd, and 4) given that what decides who survives really decides it is an absurd coincidence that someone who could figure out what happened was also a survivor. A friend defended the film on all four points. By my figuring he bested me on (1) and (2), tied on (3), and lost on (4). I still think the idea is impossible, but it does bear some thinking about.
Suffice it to say this may be a better film that it at first appears to be and deserves a modest +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
I do have a philosophical complaint about the film. One of the characters feels terrible remorse for having worked on a scientific project whose results could have been used for evil. I guess this is a natural outgrowth of a pacifist sentiment growing in New Zealand. My question to the filmmaker would be just how much human progress could have ever taken place without anyone working science that could have been used for evil. Most of my career I worked on a data network that could have been used by a repressive government for keeping tabs on its citizens. The knowledge of how to immunize against smallpox makes it possible to infect your enemies at no risk to yourself. Find ways to increase food production and you find ways to control others with the surplus. No field of scientific research is entirely harmless; it is just that most are less risky than stagnation.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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