By M
I did not intend to watch this movie. In fact, I intended not to watch it, but a friend wanted to watch it and I really wanted to spend some time with her.
As I didn’t intend to watch it, I didn’t know a thing about the movie. When I saw the trailer, I remember it did surprise me (for two seconds) that Naomi Watts would play in a movie like that, but we have seen her doing worse things. Before heading to the theater, I had a quick look at the movie profile and I discovered, to my amazement, that the director was Juan Antonio Bayona. Bayona has only directed another movie, a “false” horror movie that I thought was good for the message it sent and the way it played with the viewer. Seeing that, I wondered why I had not paid any attention to The Impossible before.
I think the reason is that it seems to me it’s easy to choose that topic to transmit emotions, because it’s easy to feel moved by a story like that. It’s easy to manipulate your viewer instead of elevating it to experiences it hasn’t felt before. But I think I was wrong to disregard this movie. I think it is understandable that people want to make movies like this and help others (us) explore our empathy for those who lived horrific moments that we can’t really understand.
That said, the movie has many of the MUSTs of the genre, but it’s not a caricature. It does have some “moving” music, but not all the time; some panoramic shots, but not too many; some highlighting of details (read drops), but only twice…
And we can let that go, because the movie has several interesting things. For example, you only need the first 20 seconds, right after the introductory notes on the “true story”, to find out that the sound editor is a genius. Besides, some of the images are bewitching, such as the bodies moving under the water. Bayona also makes some brave editing choices: the scene of the tsunami itself lasts for something like 20 minutes, the “endless” effect is perfectly mastered.
I also defend his choice of focusing on a single family, a Spanish family, as he is. I have no problem whatsoever with making compassion and empathy accessible by circles of closeness. I think any other choice would have been pretentious, as he is already trying to understand a (true) story that is not his. He does show us other people’s stories, but it’s not his focal point, which I was grateful for.
If any of the reasons above speak to you, you should watch this movie. If you were like me, intending not to watch it, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s worth the detour.
cucurbitacee 