THE ROAD - "We're the good guys...we carry the fire."

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. - Amazon.com

Generally speaking, I try to avoid spoilers in these blogs. In the case of The Road, that will probably be impossible, so be warned.

Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel can be an unrelentingly grim read. The focus throughout is on the two main characters - the unnamed father and son traveling along a mostly deserted, ash-covered road. The few characters we do meet range from cannibalistic gangs and nearly dead individuals who are avoided or quickly left behind. At it's core, however, is a story about hope.

The event that leaves the world in the state we find it is never explained in detail. The son, who seems to be five or ten years old, was born into this world, with no memory of any other life. The father guides his son through it, imparting new lessons on how to survive, while trying to "carry the fire" - a deliberate reference to the myth of Prometheus, giving humanity the gift of fire. It's a symbol of retaining what it is to be human when all other remnants of that have long since disappeared. At a point late in the novel, when the father questions whether the son believes him, the son replies "I have to." It's a response that can be taken in two ways. There is the implicit trust between a child and their parent (and that relationship is central to the book) as well as the son's need to remain hopeful, as it's the only keeping them alive - and the only reason to stay alive.

The journey itself is predicated on hope, as well. They're traveling south with the vague idea that it might be warmer there, the air might be easier to breathe. Life, meaning nothing more than survival, might be easier. We're given no reason to believe this is the case, nor are they. But to stay in one place, to accept the way things are, is to give up all hope and all reason for living.

The book ends (and this is where spoilers come in) with a seemingly hopeless note - the death of the father, finally succumbing to an illness that's been hinted at all along. It's an emotionally brutal scene, more so for the sudden and matter-of-fact way in which it's related. At this point, the two have been far closer to death and managed to come through it and go on. If the book had ended with that moment, it would still have been brilliantly and powerfully written. But McCarthy casts one last line of hope out when a small group of survivors sends someone out to meet the boy. 

Throughout the story, the father has warned the son about the potential danger of anyone they encounter, even those who seem the most helpless. The boy has trusted this his entire life, and has only recently begun to question it. The recurring conversation between the two has shifted over time from a reassurance (We're the good guys? We're the good guys. And we carry the fire? Yes, we carry the fire.) to a questioning of how they're still the good guys if they won't help anyone. As the boy sits by his dead father, holding a pistol he has two choices. He can either give in to the fear and mistrust that consumed his father, or he can hold on to the hope that sustained them both for so long. 

UPSTREAM COLOR - "..."

A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives. - IMDb

Upstream Color is the second film by Shane Carruth, the writer/director/star of the critically acclaimed time travel movie, Primer. Where the inherent complexities of that movie's plot requires a near overload of expository dialogue (and still manages to be challenging to follow), Upstream Color takes the opposite approach. We never see the main characters speak to each other about what's going on. We see what they do and what happens to them, and those actions build on each other so that we understand why later things are done. It's the definition of being shown, rather than told, and it's done very effectively.

It's difficult to talk about the film without making it sound pretentious - it can be argued that it is. But watching the movie felt like looking at and being affected by a powerful work of art. There are long stretches of the movie without any dialogue, but Carruth (who also composed the score) uses music and sound, as well as beautiful visuals, to keep the audience engaged in the story.

None of that would be nearly effective without the strong performances of both Carruth and Amy Seimetz. When the movie begins, her character is a strong, confident woman who seems to have her life under control. After the inciting incident (which I won't spoil) she transforms into almost an entirely different woman. She has lost trust in not only everyone else, but, more importantly, herself.

Upstream Color is the type of science fiction I enjoy the most. It's not about the technology involved, or even about the ramifications of that technology on a society. Instead, it uses the premise to explore characters in new and different ways.