"The Impossible" film - A MUST see !!!

Tish_P

I don't think a single non-white person even said one word throughout the long trailer I saw for this. There are millions of families with heartbreaking stories about that day and yet it just so happens that the one that gets attention involves a bunch of well-off Westerners.

So I won't be watching it. It sounds like !!!!!ish, opportunisitic bilge, garnished with a dollop of racism.

rachbc

Totally agree Ostrich - this film, with its pretty cast, was made soley to make money. The cinematography maybe wonderful, the CGI brilliant, the performances powerful but personally I won't be going to see it.

Tropez

ostrichnomore wrote: »

"This film was not made for entertainment, it was made so that people can reflect about a natural disaster and how sometimes you can endure and survive."

Sorry, don't agree. If that were the case, then it would have been a documentary. Like any other film, its sole purpose in being made is to make a profit, plain and simple. Producers and film companies are not in the business of spending millions of pounds (and possibly losing millions of pounds) to educate us all on 'hope'.

While I will agree that the film has been made for a profit, or at least to recoup the $45m spent making it, I will disagree that a film has to be made for "entertainment" and that were it purely for an emotional response it would have been a documentary. Documentary films rarely have the same emotional impact on an audience because there is no emotional or psychological investment in the people we see on-screen. We may feel sympathy towards those who tell us their stories, we may even shed a tear or two, but they are basically strangers to us who have been a participant in an event we're interested in.

Fiction tackles this by acquainting us with those through which it will tell the story. A good film, just like a good book or even a good video game, will introduce us to all the central characters, give them personalities, flaws, traits and everything else we see in people we actually know so that we can live vicariously through these characters for a brief period. Because of this, when they suffer, we suffer and when they experience joy, so do we. If the filmmakers are artisans in their craft, then the emotional experience is much more overwhelming that a documentary can be.

And I will add that documentaries are also made with a profit in mind. Discovery aren't in business after all these years because they're humanitarians and they make around $1bn per year. They're a business and among their business is recording, sometimes merely months after the fact, incidents of extreme horror for those directly involved.

Seanymph

*waves at Katy and steps onto soap box with her*

I think it's abhorrent.

You can spout as much justifying clap trap as you fancy, but you won't 'art and understanding' me from my viewpoint. It's profiteering of the worst kind - taking something that devastated so many, just out of interest are the actors all doing it for nothing? Is the director? The writers? Are any profits being donated to support people affected by it? Thought not.

I think it's awful.

mountainofdebt

Sorry....it may be a true story but the subject matter for me doesn't make this a night out's entertainment.

I read a book last year which was a complete work of fiction (no irony intended) and it was about how the tsunami affect the family of one of the victims.

At the end, reading the author's thanks she wrote that she had written the book from how she hoped her interpretition of how family members may react wouldn't offend anyone actually affected.

I, if I had been affected, could choose to read that book or I could choose to see that film. To dump it on you, without warning, in a cinema is not on.

Mrs.W_2

Having read four more articles on The Impossible, I think even less of this multi-million dollar movie.

The film is based on the survival story of Maria Belon, a Spanish doctor, her husband and three sons. It was only in 2007 that Dr Belon felt able to talk about the disater.

Then to place the film's focus on survivor guilt? It beggars belief.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9769913/The-Impossible-real-life-disaster-movie.html

Cherry_Bomb

Anyone complaining about this film who have watched the likes of Schindler's List, Days of Glory, Saving Private Ryan etc. Jeez even Titanic! Massive hypocrites.

Who's to say what an acceptable length of time is before a film based on true events is released? Just because the above mentioned happened many more years ago doesn't make them any less harrowing for the survivors and families of the dead.

Mrs.W_2

Cherry_Bomb wrote: »

Anyone complaining about this film who have watched the likes of Schindler's List, Days of Glory, Saving Private Ryan etc. Jeez even Titanic! Massive hypocrites.

I've not watched any of the films you listed. I see no entertainment in gawping at misery in living memory.

Cherry_Bomb wrote: »

Who's to say what an acceptable length of time is before a film based on true events is released? Just because the above mentioned happened many more years ago doesn't make them any less harrowing for the survivors and families of the dead.

Those who find such films distasteful? It inevitably comes down to personal choice.

Cherry_Bomb

Mrs.W wrote: »

I've not watched any of the films you listed. I see no entertainment in gawping at misery in living memory.

In that case my first paragraph doesn't apply to you, hence the opening of 'anyone complaining about this film who have watched.........'

Mrs.W wrote: »

Those who find such films distasteful? It inevitably comes down to personal choice.

I agree but my point is its clearly the minority who found such films distasteful judging by their huge success whereas this film has caused such moral outrage

I can only assume x numbers of years must pass before the majority find it ok to be entertained by tragedy

ecgirl07

Mrs.W wrote: »

Having read four more articles on The Impossible, I think even less of this multi-million dollar movie.

The film is based on the survival story of Maria Belon, a Spanish doctor, her husband and three sons. It was only in 2007 that Dr Belon felt able to talk about the disater.

Then to place the film's focus on survivor guilt? It beggars belief.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/9769913/The-Impossible-real-life-disaster-movie.html

that interview read ok with me, art since the dawn of time reflects human experience why not look at survivors guilt? there are plenty movies that relate modern day disaster and war - Hotel Rwanda, The Killing Fields, Black Hawk Down films about 911 etc etc. Its up to the individual to watch them or not. a lot of outrage on this thread but seemingly from people who have not seen the film.