2012

Today we visited Cinéma Lux in La Châtre in order to see the film 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich, with John Cusack in the leading role.

We were quite sure that we knew what we were going to see before seing the movie and of course we got what we expected. "Nous étions prévenus"/"We were warned" as the texts declare.
No surprises, only the cinematically recurrent history of Americans saving the world, or in this case a part of it.
John Cusack was the main character - Jackson Curtis - and 'hero', white and American, of course. His wife - Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet) and children survives - of course.
His Indian friend and colleague, dr Satnam Tsurutani (Jimi Mistry) and his family dies - of course.

Emmerich tried to mix 'white' with 'yellow' and 'brown' or 'black' but as a whole this was the same, rather ethnocentric, story we've seen over and over again in different American catastrophy films.
The ethnocentricity concerns the description of who is actually able to save the world, making the right decisions etc, even though one had tried to ameliorate this by depicting a black president - Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover).
He also dies however!
When all other people aorund him dies in similar situations, our hero makes it, sometimes even with a smile on his lips!

The main female characters always remains well dressed, almost no stains on their clothes with a great make-up and perfect hair, even if sulphur is falling over their heads.
This makes the film look more like a comedy than a dramatic story.

How come, not least American actresses, are so afraid of looking dirty, lacking make up or rather why doesn't directors let them look that way? Would this spoil their 'star image'?
Yes of course, as so much within the American film industry is focused on the surface: 'Perfect looking' actors, 'perfect' technical machinery, 'perfect' light and all to often perfectly uninteresting.

The film nearly made us feel that the end of the world must be a rather fascinating event and sometimes even amusing! Of course hundreds of millions of people die but that's only 'collateral damage'.

The music accompanying the story was a carbon copy of other musical scores from similar films, (do Hollywood only have one or two composers to musical scores in films?) not to mention the plot, the characters and the Biblical story of Noah's Ark (Evan Almighty)!

Only one thing impressed on us: The technical skill! It won't be easy making a film with catastrophical scenes made in such a brilliant way!

Well, now we've seen it and that was that!

(Poster with monk at the mountain copied from: http://media.zoom-cinema.fr/photos/3509/affiche-2012.jpg)

(Poster 2 with the flooded city copied from: http://fin-du-monde.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/film-2012-fin-du-monde-8.jpg)
(Poster 3 with the plane going through the town with falling skyscrapers copied from: http://www.dinosoria.com/cinema/2012-7.jpg)