Distopian History

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2018)

"Invasion Of The Body Snatchers", "Planet Of The Apes", "A Clockwork Orange", "1984", "Mad Max 2", "The Terminator"... "The Grapes Of Wrath"?
As nightmarish as any science fiction movie about a distopian future, and yet when it was made it was an historical movie of the recent past, set in the brutal reality of 1930s America during the Great Depression.
Henry Fonda returns from prison to find his family nolonger has a home and the share cropper world he knew has become the wasteland of the dustbowl, where fat cats in big cars pass the buck while the ordinairy folk scratch at the dry dirt in frustration and starve.
A flat, featurless landscape, scoured by dust storms, that leave a haze through which headlights and torches cast ominous shadows, exagerating the gaunt twisted faces and inbred misshapen ears of it's haunted inhabitants.
In images reminicent of the Terminator movies, bulldozers ridden by faceless figures in gas masks roam the land, demolishing everything in their path - but the faceless figure behind the wheel turns out to be another fellow farmer trying to feed his family.
Hank and co travel "Beverly Hillbilly" style across the country, along the way there are acts of kindness between individuals, but as a group they are resented as outsiders by locals, who fear suffering the same fate.
There are shanty towns and farms run like prison camps, angry mobs, police state border controls, man hunting, incidents of inhumanity and humanity are all woven together expertly by John Ford in this master piece.
Fonda is at his melancholy, lean, long legged best, John Carradine is also a standout as the preacher who has lost his faith and Jane Darwell won an oscar for her portrayal of "Ma".
Defiant speachifying by Hank and Ma provide some semblance of a hopeful ending.
They really don't come any better than this.