The
French title (better than the Swedish title 'Turist' BTW), translates most obviously to 'Major Force',
but that sounds like a Charles Bronson movie, so 'Act of God' is
probably the better rendition, referring as it does to the clause in
most contracts that allows a way out for everyone, much harm but no
foul; i.e. 'sh*t happens', responsibility must be shared, if the
concept even applies. And that's the plot: when the 'little
avalanche' comes, people revert to basic instincts for survival, if only for a minute. The
wife and mother immediately protects her kids. The husband and
father pulls a George Costanza and makes for the exit, reappearing
only long after the fog of disaster has cleared. Food for thought?
You bet...
Everything
else is anti-climactic. Sound like life itself? There's a reason
for that. The entire movie revolves around the theme of life as
lived in the 21st century, behind the ironic curtains of
technology and instinct. To generalize it verbally is almost cliché:
no matter how technologically advanced we humans are, at heart we are still
pathetic and almost increasingly useless, specialized to the point of our own upcoming extinction. Got it. To see it playing itself
out in the mind of someone traumatized by near-disaster is poignant.
There are no good answers to the recurring questions of 'Why?' Why?'
Why?'
It
is equally poignant to see it play itself out on the wide screen of
Nature: is a ski resort itself anything but a challenge to God and
all our concepts of Him, simultaneously requesting entertainment and
protection from it at the same time? Is that a reasonable request,
or the desperate pathetic yearnings of a species on the verge of a
nervous breakdown? The protagonist finally owns up to his
responsibility, or lack thereof, after his wife refuses to let him
plead ignorance. In fact he even achieves something close to
Christian deliverance or emotional catharsis in the process. But is
it legit?
Apparently
it's only legit when the woman says so, in something of an
anti-climactic mini-plot toward the end, in which he saves her from a
situation similar to the first, from which she apparently didn't
really need to be saved. Huh? Is this a Bunuel film? I thought it
was a Bergman film. The final nail in the coffin occurs when the bus
driver ferrying them home along narrow twisted Alpine roads has a
bout of Parisian driving fits, dodging precipitous cliffs as if they
were street urchins peddling Gauloises, until our heroine can take no
more, begging to get off the bus, WITHOUT HER KIDS!
The
entire busload follows, including our male protag AND the kids, he
apparently now totally reformed, she gone off the deep end. Now I'm
really confused. As the credits roll an entire busload of passengers
is walking back to civilization after the pas d'Anglais bus
driver dumps them unceremoniously on the side of the road and leaves
without them. I don't buy it. Why do I get the feeling that the
film either ran out of money or ideas at the end?
No,
I don't need a happy ending, but I do need closure. Did the
passengers make it back? That's a long walk; and carrying kids?
Still the metaphysical questions linger: Who are we? How did we get
here? What do we do now? Where are we going? To ask these
questions outright is pedantic. For them to bubble up spontaneously
from a minimalistic script is sublime. That's where this movie is at
its best. It ain't perfect, but it's pretty darn good; that's the buzz from the latest festival at Cannes. And you can get get the main gist and jism pretty quickly. You don't
have to sleep, toss or turn too much in the sticky spots like our hapless protagonist. Recommended.
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