Title: The Divide (2011)
Director: Xavier Gans
Cast: Michael Biehn, Rosanna Arquette, Lauren German, Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Eklund
Review:
So this is a very polarizing film, you’ll either love it or
you’ll hate it. Either you’ll appreciate the themes and issues it addresses, or
you’ll feel like you lost two hours of your life. It’s interesting that a film
that causes such polarizing effects is called ‘The Divide’. Me? Im a weirdo, so I personally fell
somewhere in between. I loved some things about it, but I also felt I could
have gone further with it's ideas, as it is, it feels like a film held back by budgetary limitations.
The Divide starts out with what a lot of post apocalyptic
films avoid; the actual apocalypse! This I liked because most post apocalyptic
films only talk about their apocalypse by way of newspaper articles or a simple
voice over, but not The Divide. This film actually shows us the nukes cutting
through the skies and landing right smack in the middle of New York City
So this is the kind of film in which a bunch of people end
up enclosed in a room in which slowly but surely their true colors begin to surface;
kind of like in Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (1997), a film in which a series of
strangers suddenly wake up inside of a room; they don’t know how they got there; nobody is
related, nobody knows each other, the only thing that connects them is the room
and the situation they are in; same thing with George Romero’s Night of the
Living Dead (1968). In films of this nature, characters have to learn to work
together in order to survive; but can they work together when they can’t even stand
each other? Usually, in these films the personalities that are forced to live
together end up being vastly different; so you get the quiet one, the funny
one, the nerdy one, the tough one, the alpha male and the unequivocal asshole. With
so many different personalities in one room, it’s only a matter of time before
they are at each others throats.
The Divide is no different, only in The Divide, almost everyone
is an asshole, or at least ends up turning into one. Imagine a film in which almost
everyone is despicable. This is the kind of film The Divide is, it’s a very
bleak film that has little to no faith in humanity, some people will end up
hating the film simply because of this. There’s so much negativity on this picture!
It’s the kind of film that says that under strenuous circumstances, humanity
will end up eating each other; which in a way is true. The tougher things get
economically speaking, the trickier everyone gets, suddenly you pay three times
more for something that use to cost a whole lot less a couple of years ago. Suddenly
your mechanic finds a way for you to come back in a couple of weeks. Suddenly
gas prices skyrocket. Humanity eats itself in a never ending vicious cycle. Now
imagine if suddenly food was no longer available in supermarkets! Imagine if
there was no power, no electricity, no money. Would chaos ensue? Would people
end up turning into cannibals? Would we loose all our moral fiber? Our
humanity? Would we all go nuts if suddenly no cameras were taping our every
move? Would we steal? Cheat? Lie? Kill?
The problem with The Divide is that it tests your patience
because 90% of it takes place in the basement. After a while you grow tired of
the same setting and wish you could see something different. You end up feeling
as claustrophobic as the characters. For example, Cube had this premise of
people locked up in a room, but the room always changed, and the characters
were always confronted with a different situation. In The Divide the locations don’t
change, it’s the characters that change. The nicest people end up turning into
the biggest monsters. So before you watch this movie you need to ask yourself
if being inside of a room with a bunch of complete douche bags is what you
want, cause that’s what your gonna get! This is the kind of film that wants to
explore humanities darker side, so you’ll see humans turning into metaphorical
monsters. If you’re not ready to go down the rabbit hole of craziness, you
know, the deep dark side of the human psyche, then don’t bother. Though to be
honest, I thought the film was going to be sicker, more depraved, it isn’t all
that.
I enjoyed the sci-fi elements they infused into the film,
but honestly I wish they could have explained more, shown more. As it is, they
only give us a glimpse of coolness. This is a movie that can wear you down, by
the mid way point you don’t want to be in the room with these people anymore,
at least that’s how I felt. To me this is the kind of film I watch only once,
and never bother to revisit again. Director Xavier Gans works with a minuscule
budget, and obviously this limits how much you can show in terms of effects and
action, but this is the kind of film that relies not on effects, but on its
performances. It was cool to see Michael Biehn on a film again, in my opinion
he is so underused in movies. The rest of the cast really go for this descent
into madness, Rosanna Arquette does a great job as well. In the end, this is a
very dark picture, which gets kind of stale because it only takes place in once
place. The Divide is an overdose of darkness, despair, betrayal, lust and
violence, which will test your patience. Prognosis for this one: you’ll either
endure it, or turn it off at the half way point; I doubt you’ll love it.
Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5
