It Was Never Just About the Mall
It begins with the sight of a red shag carpet wall. And then we see a young blonde woman leaning against the wall while she sleeps. But her slumber is not peaceful. It becomes obvious to even the least observant viewer that she is having a bad dream and when she finally gets woken up, it becomes obvious why she is having them.
The place she awakens to is a TV news studio. The woman's name is Francine Parker and she is part of the crew that works there. Currently the crew is trying to film a talk show in which the latest guest is a doctor talking about the latest epidemic. However, the epidemic in question is not AIDS or swine flu. It's zombism and it seems obvious to the casual observer that the doctor's society isn't exactly controlling this epidemic very well. The whole station is in chaos with the doctor being heckled by some of the very people filming him and the station manager preferring to send out false information about rescue stations rather than risk bad ratings. People are already starting to abandon the TV station and when Francine's boyfriend Stephen comes by and suggests a similar plan, she does not need much persuasion before she too agrees to abandon her post and head for the hills. After all, society is falling apart all around her. So why should she stay? Why not take off and seek sanctuary from the growing zombie plague?
Thus begins director George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, a movie released in 1978 that has been often interpreted as being little more than an empty-headed horror film with pretensions to social commentary. As far as most critics are concerned, Dawn of the Dead begins and ends with the abandoned shopping mall that Francine, Stephen and two other characters end up occupying partway through the movie. And to be fair, the movie's somewhat heavyhanded comparisons between mall shoppers and zombies do tend to prove the critics' point -- especially if you choose to ignore the rest of the movie.
But George Romero's Dawn of the Dead is not just about shopping malls; it is about society. American society. And the brief glimpses it gives at the beginning of the film of the America surrounding the mall are as scary and intriguing as anything that takes place within the mall itself. In this bizarre world which looks so similar to our own, inner city apartment dwellers fight over the right to retain the bodies of their dead neighbors and loved ones, a racist cop feels free to use the chaos of a SWAT raid to conduct his own private war against minorities, and rural folk treat the whole zombie epidemic as little more than an excuse for a hunting party.
When Francine and Stephen leave the city in a stolen TV news helicopter, they are in the company of two SWAT team members named Peter and Roger and are not inclined to trust anyone else. A simple request for cigarettes from a fellow refugee goes ignored and a simple stop for fuel almost proves to be the death of them.
Tension grows within the group. Stephen's lousy marksmanship nearly proves to be the death of one group member and by the time the group comes to the abandoned shopping mall mentioned up above, the group members are quite eager to use it for a temporary resting place. Then they discover the abundance of consumer goods that are available in the mall and Roger and Peter decide to take to help themselves to some free goodies. However, the mall is crawling with zombies and the quartet has to work together to both get rid of the zombies and avoid getting killed in the process. Then things get even more complicated when they discover that one group member -- Francine, of course -- is pregnant.
Even when the gang finally achieves a victory over the mall zombies, there is an air of sadness to said event. Romero films the final view of the dead mall zombies not so much as an act of triumph but as an act of tragedy. Realistically, there was perhaps no way the humans and the zombies could have co-existed in the same mall, but the quartet is nevertheless reminded all too often that they are not just killing zombies but also killing former human beings.
In any event, the relief said victory gives them from the zombie epidemic proves to be only temporary. One group member succumbs to a bite he received during the battle against the zombies and news programs from the outside world become increasingly rare. Pretty soon the television and the radio are only broadcasting static. Francine and Stephen fight over an attempted marriage proposal and life seems very bleak indeed. Then a band of fellow humans discovers the mall and the quartet-turned-trio is forced to face an enemy that is even worse than the zombies...
It would be easy to concentrate just on the blood and guts that are frequently displayed in the last ten minutes of the movie and just see the flick as a simple-minded horror flick. But it seems obvious that Romero didn't want it to be seen just that way. After all, it is no accident that the film begins not in the shopping mall or in the helicopter but in the TV station. The story starts with one character, moves on to another and then yet another until we are back to the character we started with. The movie gives us ample glimpses of a society in chaos with no signs that things are likely to get better.
The last scene in the film appears to be one of triumph. The helicopter takes off with the surviving members of the quartet and the zombies are left behind to take over the shopping mall. However, it is pointed out that the helicopter is low on fuel. And that the zombies outside the mall are still far more numerous than the humans.
Thus the ending seems both hopeful and grim. Yes, the survivors have accomplished their escape from the mall. But where do they go next? And how will they manage to get there?
Mercifully, Romero never shows us the answers to these questions.
It begins with the sight of a red shag carpet wall. And then we see a young blonde woman leaning against the wall while she sleeps. But her slumber is not peaceful. It becomes obvious to even the least observant viewer that she is having a bad dream and when she finally gets woken up, it becomes obvious why she is having them.
The place she awakens to is a TV news studio. The woman's name is Francine Parker and she is part of the crew that works there. Currently the crew is trying to film a talk show in which the latest guest is a doctor talking about the latest epidemic. However, the epidemic in question is not AIDS or swine flu. It's zombism and it seems obvious to the casual observer that the doctor's society isn't exactly controlling this epidemic very well. The whole station is in chaos with the doctor being heckled by some of the very people filming him and the station manager preferring to send out false information about rescue stations rather than risk bad ratings. People are already starting to abandon the TV station and when Francine's boyfriend Stephen comes by and suggests a similar plan, she does not need much persuasion before she too agrees to abandon her post and head for the hills. After all, society is falling apart all around her. So why should she stay? Why not take off and seek sanctuary from the growing zombie plague?
Thus begins director George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, a movie released in 1978 that has been often interpreted as being little more than an empty-headed horror film with pretensions to social commentary. As far as most critics are concerned, Dawn of the Dead begins and ends with the abandoned shopping mall that Francine, Stephen and two other characters end up occupying partway through the movie. And to be fair, the movie's somewhat heavyhanded comparisons between mall shoppers and zombies do tend to prove the critics' point -- especially if you choose to ignore the rest of the movie.
But George Romero's Dawn of the Dead is not just about shopping malls; it is about society. American society. And the brief glimpses it gives at the beginning of the film of the America surrounding the mall are as scary and intriguing as anything that takes place within the mall itself. In this bizarre world which looks so similar to our own, inner city apartment dwellers fight over the right to retain the bodies of their dead neighbors and loved ones, a racist cop feels free to use the chaos of a SWAT raid to conduct his own private war against minorities, and rural folk treat the whole zombie epidemic as little more than an excuse for a hunting party.
When Francine and Stephen leave the city in a stolen TV news helicopter, they are in the company of two SWAT team members named Peter and Roger and are not inclined to trust anyone else. A simple request for cigarettes from a fellow refugee goes ignored and a simple stop for fuel almost proves to be the death of them.
Tension grows within the group. Stephen's lousy marksmanship nearly proves to be the death of one group member and by the time the group comes to the abandoned shopping mall mentioned up above, the group members are quite eager to use it for a temporary resting place. Then they discover the abundance of consumer goods that are available in the mall and Roger and Peter decide to take to help themselves to some free goodies. However, the mall is crawling with zombies and the quartet has to work together to both get rid of the zombies and avoid getting killed in the process. Then things get even more complicated when they discover that one group member -- Francine, of course -- is pregnant.
Even when the gang finally achieves a victory over the mall zombies, there is an air of sadness to said event. Romero films the final view of the dead mall zombies not so much as an act of triumph but as an act of tragedy. Realistically, there was perhaps no way the humans and the zombies could have co-existed in the same mall, but the quartet is nevertheless reminded all too often that they are not just killing zombies but also killing former human beings.
In any event, the relief said victory gives them from the zombie epidemic proves to be only temporary. One group member succumbs to a bite he received during the battle against the zombies and news programs from the outside world become increasingly rare. Pretty soon the television and the radio are only broadcasting static. Francine and Stephen fight over an attempted marriage proposal and life seems very bleak indeed. Then a band of fellow humans discovers the mall and the quartet-turned-trio is forced to face an enemy that is even worse than the zombies...
It would be easy to concentrate just on the blood and guts that are frequently displayed in the last ten minutes of the movie and just see the flick as a simple-minded horror flick. But it seems obvious that Romero didn't want it to be seen just that way. After all, it is no accident that the film begins not in the shopping mall or in the helicopter but in the TV station. The story starts with one character, moves on to another and then yet another until we are back to the character we started with. The movie gives us ample glimpses of a society in chaos with no signs that things are likely to get better.
The last scene in the film appears to be one of triumph. The helicopter takes off with the surviving members of the quartet and the zombies are left behind to take over the shopping mall. However, it is pointed out that the helicopter is low on fuel. And that the zombies outside the mall are still far more numerous than the humans.
Thus the ending seems both hopeful and grim. Yes, the survivors have accomplished their escape from the mall. But where do they go next? And how will they manage to get there?
Mercifully, Romero never shows us the answers to these questions.
Labels: El Amanecer de los Muertos Vivientes, Francine Parker, George Romero, Películas de Halloween III, Películas Neoclásicas II, Zombies
posted by Tonio Kruger at 5:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home