August 10, 2005
Tsunami film to be American
News from The Guardian is that a film about the recent Tsunami disaster is in the planning stages.
Titled Hereafter, the film will tell the story of an American man who walks barefoot for 70 miles to try to find his missing wife and children. Filming is to take place in Indonesia later this year."This is a story of salvation, a tale of a man who realises exactly what he's lost during his search to find it," writer-director Michael Patwin told trade magazine Variety...
...Perhaps conscious of possible accusations of a distasteful cash-in, producers intend to donate a "significant portion" of the film's takings to disaster relief efforts.
Well that's a good act, but there's two things that really strike me about this movie. One is that it seems far more palatable for Hollywood to dramatise foreign tragedies than it is for ones closer to home, it's a very short amount of time after the Boxing Day Tsunami to be writing a script when compared to the uproar regarding any dramatisation of the Twin Towers.
The really big hitter for me though is that this story about this hugely devasting natural disaster in Indonesia is going to focus around an American and his family. Another film of American endurance over diversity, and another movie to turn the eye away from where the real focus should be.
Personally I think the best thing for any project based on the Tsunami should be a collection of short films, taking Writers and Directors from around the areas affected by the disaster. Add in perhaps a couple of major Writers or Directors for some more box office weight, and there you have your movie. I think that's a much better idea, then you'll get a cross section of stories and styles, the majority focussed on the countries that were actually affected. Instead, we'll see another America triumphs movie.
Posted by at August 10, 2005 11:57 AM
Comments
Posted by: David Blue at August 10, 2005 12:57 PM
Now I can pitch my movie to the Indian Film Council:
An Indian Man is visiting New York City with his wife and children. He goes to a Dell computer conference in Brooklyn. While there the WTC attack occurs and he's stuck in Brooklyn while his wife and children are in Manhattan. He has to learn to breakdance his way across the East River.
You think American's would go for that? It's the same thing we're doing with this absurd Tsunami film.
Posted by: matthew at August 10, 2005 02:29 PM
-------*lowers head in shame*--------------------
Posted by: lizardfreak12 at August 10, 2005 02:44 PM
The whole idea of this story makes me sick. The fact someone is going to bring an American survival story to this tragedy feels highly disrespectful.
Posted by: Meli at August 10, 2005 02:49 PM
If you had seven eights of the movie be devoted to the people who were affected by the tsunami in big numbers, and had only the last eighth be about the USS Ronald Reagan sailing to the rescue and so on, I still think that would be OK.
I don't see how Hereafter, the way they are doing it, can possibly turn out to be an acceptable film. The basic idea is wrong.
Posted by: David Blue at August 10, 2005 07:26 PM
Doesn't sound to good to me.
Donna A.
Posted by: Donna A. at August 10, 2005 10:56 PM
Makes me feel worse for the majority of the people who's HOMES and FAMILIES were affected, not those people who were on vacation and had a home and families to go back to.
Posted by: Darth_Xanther at August 11, 2005 06:09 PM
I don't like the look of this either. It's simultaneously too much America and not enough recognition for America.
The Americans were not the victims in this tragedy, they were the rescuers, and my godfather didn't they race to the rescue in style! This deserves more recognition.
What I would like to see is a series of mini-movies that should be as documentary in style as possible. I am thinking of the Olympics movie Visions Of Eight. And because this would be very tough to watch, the last one would be the feel good story of America to the rescue (with Japanese and Australian help), which in this case would be nothing but the plain truth.