A very good metaphor!!

Rating: 8/10 (1 May 2008)

These were two days for monster movies. Yesterday, "Cloverfield" (loved it) and today, "The Mist". First off, "The Mist" is a very good movie. The acting is very good, the mood created with the fog is superb and the creatures are good, also, but these last are only accessories to the story, in my opinion. Stephen King is a sucker for cabin fever, and how well he portrays it. Frank Darabont has already shown to have a keen eye in translating King's stories to the big screen. But now, most important, the metaphor. This story brings about a very subtle reality in which we live in, a very thin line between civilization and chaos. Let's take this back to sci-fi from the 40's or the 50's. By know, the year 2000, we should have already settled on the moon, been to Mars, have a better world, etc, etc. But none of that happened. Instead, we live in a world where on one side there's war, death, disease, famine, fanaticism. On the other side, there's civilization (assumed...), richness, well-being, comfort. How thin is the line between these two? Very much so. Are we really, on this supposed civilized side, so able to carry on the flag of our values if this same civilization was to collapse? Are we, as people, any better under stress than those so-called "uncivilized"? How would we justify our actions under another scenario? These are subtle questions (not so subtle, sometimes) asked and shown throughout the movie. Some of them have very strong mirrors in what's happening in the world today. And as most stories of the sort, it takes a great danger to unite everybody, no matter color, creed, flag, against the common foe. But are we really able to do that, come the time for it? Are these only faint shards of hope to make us believe that, as a character from the movie says, we all share an inheritance of good, underneath it all?
I believe so, but sometimes i'm led into questioning my belief. And that's what i found out as best in this movie. And i think that there is no criticism in the movie about religion, but about fanaticism, and how embedded it is in our nature. Unfortunately.
Please, if you haven't yet, watch this movie. Indulge yourself onto King's view of human nature. And no, he doesn't have a solution for it. The solution is in our own hands. Something we should be considering, instead of burying our heads in the sand.