The Quiet Earth

Title: The Quiet Earth (1985)
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery
Starring: Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge, Pete Smith
Director: Geoff Murphy

It is at precisely 6:12am that our protagonist, Zac Hobson awakes from his cheap motel room after a bad nights sleep. As he groggily drags his tired frame from the clutches of the dirty sheet and makes his way across to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, he fumbles to turn on the radio to discover nobody broadcasting. This is the first clue that Zac Hobson is in fact the last man left on the face of the earth. Following his journey of discovery as to the cause of the inhabitants mysterious spontaneous disappearance, somehow intertwined with ‘project flashpoint;’ a dangerous project his research company were tampering with, as he continues his exploration, he slowly resigns himself to his lonely fate.

Undeterred by the lower production values of this lost work from New Zealand, the very concept of having the world as your own private playground is one that I have found intriguing for the sheer amount of emotions and situations one can find themselves in. Without boundaries, who would feel compelled to abide by the old laws and who would create havoc? What would you do given nobody else to watch you, let alone condemn you? And then theres the deep psychological torment of the situation, schizophrenia brought on as a result of severe loneliness, fabricating characters just to have someone to talk to. It is this grounded variability that can lend such versatility to what is on the surface a relatively simple concept, but without anyone else to converse with, portraying the characters emotions without coming off melodramatic becomes no easy task.

This is where the superb abilities of the lead, Bruno Lawrence, come to hand. Regarded as something of a local cult icon, he displays his colours by carefully using body language in place of speech; without saying a word for the first 15 minutes of the film at no point does any of his actions feel unexplained, not an easy feat. Quickly descending into chaos, it his insanity that lends itself to the most poignant shots; the rain in the darkness as he plays random notes on a saxophone, or a church scene where he challenges god with a shotgun could easily have been played for laughs, but despite the unusual situation it does nothing but demonstrate his own psychological thought processes. It is, however, ultimately short lived.

I grumbled when ‘I Am Legend’ did it (betraying the original ‘Omega Man’) and whilst this film had no such blueprint, the neccesity to bring in other characters after half an hour is not one that I applaud. Whilst quickly becoming essential to the story at hand, it is the love interest that so quickly becomes his sole reason for being, emotionally tied to the only woman left in his presence, clinging to her to maintain his own sanity, things only go from bad to worse when the militaristic maori character comes into play. Tensions rising, and with an ominous scientific dilemma; with fears for the collapse of the fabric of the entire universe, striving to set things right and overcome his own guilt at his hand in the world’s destruction with devastating consequences.

It is the peculiar decision to bring conventionality to an otherwise thought provoking and intelligent piece – the two-dimensional love interest and a look-a-like for Mr.T – that has me stumped. There is still a point to make about the man’s own personal prison, ‘condemned to live’ (as he put it) in a world isolated from all others, dealing with his own personal torment, but it becomes clouded by other things. The neccessity for love and a large quantity of scientific reasoning struggling to bring an explanation to the inexplicable, succeeding in getting across the consequence but never alluding as to the cause both aspects weighing heavily on the finished piece. This isn’t a disaster, but after a powerful first act that manages to create a ‘Twilight Zone’ feel with extra psychoticism, its more than a little disheartening to watch it turn into a nonsensical physics lesson.