Tag: true story

Film Review: Tracks

Life is a journey– make sure you have enough camels.

Mia Wasikowska and camels in John Curran's Tracks.
Mia Wasikowska and camels in John Curran’s Tracks.

Tracks is based on the true story and National Geographic article (and subsequent memoir) of Robyn Davidson, the Australian woman who made a nine month journey on foot across the Australian desert in 1977 — a distance of about 1700 miles.  Throughout her journey, accompanied only by four load-carrying camels and her dog, but occasionally visited by photographer Rick Smolan and aided by a few indigenous folks and country residents, Robyn wrestles with the pressure to remove herself from civilization while fighting to complete her epic journey.  The film is a fantastic re-enactment of Robyn’s story.  The acting, editing, stunning cinematography, music, and all other aspects of the film work harmoniously to deliver a remarkable tale of individual strength and determination, and about humankind’s companionship with nature.

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Film Review: 12 Years a Slave

Hard to endure, hard to fathom, but essential.

"12 Years A Slave" captures a personal, intimate, fear.
“12 Years A Slave” captures a personal, intimate fear.

12 Years a Slave feels like it could very well be the most accurate cinematic depiction of the atrocities of slavery.  We don’t just see the physical brutality, we also feel the isolation, the helplessness, and each slave’s necessary abandonment of individuality in order to survive.  The geographical solitude in which two different worlds are formed, the one inhabited by the slaves and the one inhabited by the landowners and overseers, is one of the story’s focal points and how it affects the mentality of each character.  For all of these reasons, 12 Years a Slave, based on the book of the true story by Solomon Northup, succeeds where no other film about slavery has.  In other films of this nature, the “hero” rises up against the odds.  The protagonist rises up by gradually becoming an outspoken leader, or by finding the only sympathetic ear that winds up being a ticket to freedom.  Those stories may be inspiring, and well told, but they are often sugar-coated, to put it bluntly.  When viewing 12 Years a Slave, we, the audience, don’t get special treatment.  We are forced into a very dark place in our nation’s history, and we are asked to face the harrowing truth head on.

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