The trailer for Prometheus 2012 premiered in
December 2011. That’s little more than five months before its UK release and Prometheus is
one of the tent pole movies of the year. This begs the question why was the
trailer for The Divide 2012 released 15 months
ago?
It wasn’t marketing.
The Americans had Torture Porn. The French have
their New Wave of Extremity1. The
noted films in this subgenre are Ils 2006, Martyrs 2008 and Frontier(s) 2007. Torture Porn had
one or two good movies (Hostel
2005, The Collector 2009) and so did the
French (Ils, Captifs 2010). Frontier(s)
isn’t one of them.
Frontier(s) was
loud enough. It got Hollywood’s attention. The movie business is after all the
rich relative of the carnival. Director Xavier Gens took his foghorn across the
water and made The
Divide.
No wonder it got delayed.
The
Divide is not a horror film. It’s a post apocalyptic drama
though melodrama would be apropos. The
Breakfast Club 1985 had
a concept: contain a disparate group of characters in a natural locale and
their stories will intertwine and unfold. There is brilliance in the simplicity
of this method of storytelling where the simplicity is buoyed by theme. The Divide doesn’t
have one.
The best part of this film is the opening
scenes. The marketing department recognised this and so used them in the
trailer. What’s left is a purported exploration of when things fall apart – by way
of the New French Extremity.
The explosion in the trailer suggests a
nuclear strike. Michael Biehn’s character Mickie is adamant it’s the A-rabs.
Circa 2012 the A-rabs don’t have a nuclear bomb. Circa 2012 they don’t have the
ballistics to hit New York from A-rabia. Perhaps Mickie meant the Iranians who
are no more A-rab than the Turks. Circa 2012 the Iranians don’t have a nuclear
bomb but Xavier Gens won’t let the facts get in the way of a ridiculous story.
Mickie’s decked out his boiler room like the Führerbunker
in the anticipation of the Third World War. The screenwriters must have
forgotten to tell him the Cold War is over and the Militia Movement is so 90s. Nowadays
every self respecting nutcase is a member of the Tea Party. Someone should have
told Xavier Gens.
It doesn’t take long for this story to free
fall. The radiation symptoms are inconsistent amongst the characters. The pretty
girls get to keep their hair. A gunshot wound is dealt with like a broken fingernail. Sexual perversity
is celebrated under the guise of character development. The biggest folly is
the wastage of talent like Beihn, Courtney B Vance and Rosanna Arquette.
Xavier Gens has had his Hollywood chance and
he blew it. To compare The
Divide with
Frontier(s) is to compare a frozen pizza with a stale
baguette. He’s been exposed and this should be the end of him.
The carnivals got rid of their freak shows a
long time ago.
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Read more Thrill Fiction: LaMeute aka The Pack
1 French New wave of Extremity Wikipedia
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