THE
IMPOSSIBLE
Dir.
Juan Bayona / 114 minutes / Cert 12
Juan
Bayona follows up his acclaimed 2007 directorial debut The Orphanage with another horror film. Whereas the fear factor of
his first feature emanated purely from the otherworldly and the supernatural, The
Impossible brings the horror much closer to home, drawing on real-life events,
specifically the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that devastated Indonesia and surrounding
areas and claimed over 230,000 innocent lives. I remember watching the
television news coverage at the time – my confused fifteen year-old self unable
to quite understand what I was seeing, unsure of what it meant and what was
going on.
The
film creates immediate tension because everybody knows exactly what is going to
happen. As an audience, we are powerless, simply awaiting the inevitable; the
fatal wave is going to hit and there is nothing we can do to stop it. The fact
that our main characters, the Bennett family – father, mother, their three young
sons – are blissfully ignorant of the tragedy that is about to befall them (as
of course were the quarter of a million unsuspecting victims) only serves to
reinforce the sense of dread that hangs over the film’s idyllic opening scenes;
scenes depicting the calm before the storm, introducing us to a close-knit,
moneyed middle-class family, holidaying for Christmas in a luxury apartment. Lanterns
illuminate the sky. Celebration, laughter and love, things we take for granted.
They have everything, want for nothing… and then the ground starts to tremble.
The
reconstruction of the disaster is painful to watch, beautifully repellent and
brutally realised. To call it impressive almost seems crass and insensitive,
but considering it was shot using no CGI whatsoever deserves some sort of
recognition come Oscars night. Obviously, no film dramatisation can ever even
remotely approach the abject horror of the real thing, but there’s no denying
the emotional wallop of the film’s extended key sequence. The tsunami itself
lasted for almost ten minutes, and Bayona here allows events to play out in
real time; the ten minutes stretching out like an unrelenting nightmare, a
haunting eternity. Water floods the screen. Never-ending chaos reigns. Broken bodies
are swept away like leaves on the wind. Lives become nothing; ripped apart and
destroyed forever in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of thousands of untold
stories reach horrible, untimely ends. At various points, the cinema winced
collectively at the savagery unfolding on screen and for once I was glad of the
stench of nearby nachos that filled the air as it reminded me that I was safe,
rooted and rigid in my seat.
Judging
by the reaction in the (almost full) cinema, I wasn’t alone in finding this
film deeply upsetting. Towards the end, the tension was palpable, the silence
broken only by the sound of many a sniffling nose. The fact that the film
affected its audience is a testament to the strength of the central
performances from Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor who were both outstanding. Anybody
who has seen Mulholland Drive (2001) or 21 Grams (2003) won’t need any
convincing of Watts’s acting credentials, but McGregor’s unexpectedly
heartbreaking performance as a father in search of his missing wife and son
came out of the blue and rather knocked me for six. Recently McGregor has been
taking it easy, playing the tweedy leads in romantic comedies such as the
enjoyable Beginners (2010) and the endurable Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011),
so for him to turn in such a standout performance was a real surprise for me. Likewise,
I can’t not mention newcomer Tom Holland, who plays eldest son Lucas. At the
beginning of the film, Lucas is your typical angst-ridden teenager, but the
tsunami strips away all of his cockiness and reduces him to a terrified lost
little boy looking for his mother. It’s always a good sign when you find
yourself immediately browsing the Internet to find an actor’s other credits as
I found myself doing last night. I was pleased to see that he’s already picking
up a few awards for his performance.
I
think the measure of a good film can be judged on how it leaves you feeling
afterwards. A good film stays with you. By the time the credits rolled on The
Impossible, I was slumped in my seat, utterly drained. Had I enjoyed the film?
Did I approve of the narrative need to find closure in such senseless tragedy?
Did the happy ending trivialise a disaster that destroyed so many lives? I suppose
I left the cinema pondering humanity – shown here at its most weak, vulnerable
and defenceless, but also at its most brave, resourceful and noble. The camaraderie,
the community spirit, the coming together of broken souls in dire times (many
of the survivors in fact played by real-life survivors), in my opinion,
validates the existence and relevance of this film. Yesterday was New Year’s
Day, a chance for new beginnings, so perhaps I was feeling more self-reflective
than usual, but I came away from The Impossible with one thing going round and
round in my head: life is precious.
