Tsunami film shows that it pays to be a white if you're caught in a disaster

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2013)

ONE thing I learnt from watching Spanish director J.A. Bayona's tsunami disaster film is that it pays to have travel insurance and it's good to be a white if you're caught in a natural disaster.
For the first lesson, I'd like to think that my insurance firm would rush over a luxurious private jet to pick up me and my family and transport me to a proper hospital in another country.
I don't know of any insurance firm that would go to these lengths for its customers. It would have probably asked me to pay first and then make claims upon my return.
For the second lesson, Bayona — whose movie is based on the true account of a Spanish family, the Belons — focuses on the impact of the Dec 26, 2004, tsunami on one white family.
On watching it for the first time, I thought that it made sense to describe the trauma experienced by one family whose members were separated by the giant tidal wave. The sole white family could have represented the multitudes of families whose lives came crashing down to earth.
On watching it for the second time, however, I noticed a huge void regarding the sufferings experienced by the local residents, that is, the Thais.
The kid on the left doesn't look too frightened about what's going to happen in this CGI shot. Indonesia was the hardest hit, with about 130,000 deaths; Thailand recorded 5,395 deaths, and Malaysia, 68.
In the film, nothing is seen or said about the Thai experience. The white woman and her son are brought to safety by an elderly man, and an elderly woman puts a blouse over the white woman.
Some villagers take the injured white woman and he son to the hospital, and along the way, the plight of so many more whites is shown.
At the hospital, there are only whites in it, with their pain and anguish being the film's foremost concern.
The boy, too, helps to track only white patients.
There are scenes of bodies left in the aftermath of the destruction, and they are white ones.
When the husband of the white woman manages to call home, he talks only of his family. There's no mention about the death and destruction in Thailand.
The finale of the film is also contrived. The director milks every second leading up the reconciliation between the family members in the hospital.
The family in concern comprises big company employee Henry (Ewan McGregor), non-practising doctor wife Maria (Naomi Watts, nominated for an Oscar best actress for this role), and sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast).
The film opens with the family in a plane about to land in a southern Thai island. Eldest son Lucas is rapped by his mum for not taking care of his brother.
The family members settle in for their holiday. They are thrilled to light Thai balloons on Christmas Day on the resort's beach, but again, there's not a single Asian in sight.
I had visited Phuket during the 2009 Christmas season, so I know that Thai resorts are overrun by whites. I had even joked that the number of whites was greater than the number of whites during this time of the year. But not even one non-white at the beach? Ewan McGregor with Samuel Joslin (left) and Oaklee Pendergast. Maria and Lucas are separated from the other three by the tsunami. I had seen Clint Eastwood's Hereafter and Korean tsunami disaster film Tidal Wave (2009), so I was prepared for the onslaught.
But the director goes one better by showing what happens to Maria and Thomas in the water. They are hit by so many objects that it's a miracle that they did not die in the water.
The film follows the badly-injured Maria and her son as they struggle to reach safety.
However, I cannot take anything away from the excellent acting. Holland is wonderful in showing greater responsibility, especially when he orders his mum to get to the top of a tree and forget about the cries of a kid.
Watts, for her part, must show pain, compassion and the desire to see her family again. She's terrific in the first half but she's then limited to a hospital bed and looking tired with a ghastly white pallor.
McGregor gets to shine, even though his high-pitched boyish voice is distracting. His scene with the second son, when he convinces the kid to take care his brother while he (McGregor) goes to look for the others, is touching.
Responsibility is a theme in the film, and all the kids step up their duties during this critical moment: Lucas takes care of his mum, while Thomas minds Simon.
The ending of the film is like that in Argo. Viewers already know how the film will end, so there's no dramatic tension, but that doesn't stop Bayona from creating excitement out of nothing.
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