Top of the line...

Rating: 9/10 (28 November 2005)

There are few monster films released these days that have the intelligence and symbolism of Neil Marshall's "The Descent." The very title of the film is, in and of itself, symbolic. This film can be viewed as a study in the descent of the mind, under great stress and terrible tragedy, into madness and helplessness. It can be viewed as a descent of humanity to its most primal defensive/offensive instincts. Or simply the descent of a team of cavers/climbers into a network of underground caverns inhabited by seemingly prehistoric creatures that scavenge off of whatever happens into their lair from animals to human beings.
Each of the characters in the film is superbly scripted not only in their dialog but also in their reactions internally and externally. Their reactions to their situations varies as per their character's attitude towards things. All of this is well established from the first scene of the film.
I could go on and on about the wonderful aspects of the technical attention in this film. Every shot in the film flows seamlessly from one to the other, the action is frantic and nearly impossible to make out during the fight scenes as is fitting in a film that takes place virtually by lamplight or in total darkness, and the the attention to sound design in the film creates a wholly alien sound-scape where every sound could bring danger.
In film there are two kinds of fear: A. The fear of being surprised by a loud noise or a loud orchestral clang, or B. The fear of what you can't see or even more importantly... what you DO see. Generally this film starts off with surprise scares. I'm not a fan of those kinds of scares and for a while I thought that this would be another typical shock-fest... but the director and writer seem too smart to fall into that trap. The film makes a slow, almost invisible transition from surprise to genuine fear as the creatures are seen constantly and are lurking, but haven't yet attacked. We, as the audience, and the characters know what is coming... we're just waiting for it. Like being in the dentist's office and hearing the drill... but you're still in the waiting room.
Much has been made of the end of this film and it has been talked about endlessly as both symbolic and quite matter of fact. It seems to me that most of the interpretations of the ending in this film have a degree of believability to them. Since the film represents many different things in terms of its title, I see the most plausible interpretation as that of Sarah, who has lost all of the things in her life that she loved, been betrayed by her friend who sadly is trying to make up for her betrayal but never gets a chance to, who has had to kill one of her friends who does not want to die at the hands of the creatures, and who is suffering from post-traumatic stress, as having finally lost everything that makes her herself and (like in the film Brazil) has escaped into her own insanity.
The "dream sequence" at the end of the film before she awakens in the cave again carries with it so much symbolism that it is almost heartbreaking to watch. The visual metaphor of escape for Sarah has not so much, it seems, to do with leaving the caves, as it has to do with escaping EVERYthing that has happened to her in the past year. The loss of her husband and child, the affair her friend had with her husband, the constant nightmares of her dead child, the possibly endless amount of guilt and despair over killing a friend of hers and finally the helplessness of being trapped with no hope of escape. It is a brilliant touch when Sarah, after getting into the car, buries her face in the steering wheel obscuring her eyesight, in essence making her as blind as the inhuman creatures, and sobbing as the raindrops fall on the windshield of the car and the wipers push them aside. This seems to me not only a beautifully sad scene not just of the tears of her despair but also of the wipers trying to push aside the memories. Notice that we lose the sound of both the wipers and the raindrops as she looks back up to see Juno staring her down.
This film is highly recommended and hopefully will get a release theatrically in the United States if not in the theaters then hopefully on DVD! I eagerly await the next film from Marshall and his more than able crew! Bravo!