The Quiet Earth — The Quiet Earth(Blu Ray)
The Quiet Earth is from 1985, and was directed by New Zealand filmmaker Geoff Murphy- who seemingly had a fairly mixed career- releasing both big budget box office films like Dante's Peak & Young Guns II, and B movie fare like Fortress 2 & Never Say Die. The film's plot sees balding middle-aged scientist Zac Hobson( cult New Zealand actor Bruno Lawrence )waking after an apocalyptic event- finding seemingly he’s alone, but in time he comes across two more survivors- who both change his life & destiny.
Predictably for the post-apocalyptic/ last-man-on-earth genre the film is mostly a slow-burn affair, with the first half or so finding the Hobson character searching for people, then becoming accustomed to his alone-ness, then getting suicidal…before he finds the others, and everything changes. So on the negative side the structure of the film is a little run-of-the-mill, and at times it drops into the clichés of the genre.
On the positive side of things- there’s an interesting & fairly original concept behind the event that causes the disaster – and the how/ why the survivors make it through. The three characters are fairly quirky & distinctive, and for the most part, they are fairly well fleshed-out. Also as mentioned early-on, you get some quite effectively trippy visuals along the way, some impressive shots of post-apocalyptic Clevedon, and a rather what-the-hell ending. It’s not going to be a film that’ll convent non-fans to the genre, but if you enjoy slow burn post-apocalyptic drama - then you’ll find it a fairly worthy addition to the genre, with some nice touches.
Extras wise you get two around fifteen-minute featurettes- first & most interesting of these is Kim Newman discussing the history of post-apocalyptic literary & cinema, and in practically last-man-on-earth sub-genre. As usual Newman, a font of knowledge and he puts it across in his normal friendly- yet- slight eccentric manner. The other featurette is an audio essay on the film by critic Bryan Reesman; this is ok; though it didn’t really bring any real revelations. We also get a full-length commentary from critic Travis Crawford- this is certainly very informative & varied in its scope, as Crawford moves from discussing the film's origins & the novel it was based on. Onto the career of actor Bruno Lawrence, the history of the New Zealand film industry, the wider post- apocalyptic genre. And of course what’s going on in the film its self- I certainly got some interesting tit-bits from the track, though I did find Crawford to be a tad bit dry in places.
The Quiet Earth is certainly one of the more worthy & interesting additions to the after the doomsday branch of cinematic Sci-Fi. And kudos must go to Arrow for reissuing another classic slice New-Zealand cinema .