Erik's thoughts on "The Hunger Games" and "4:44 Last Day on Earth"

I wrote the following two reviews a few months ago for another publication. These are the first time I've made them available online.

Gary Ross' The Hunger Games, based on a series of popular young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, recently premiered in North America to the biggest opening weekend ever for a non-sequel. Some would claim that this validates its quality. The legions of book lovers, passionately vocal and growing, have driven the film's release into the current media zeitgeist, and for how long it will last may ultimately have more to do with the determined fan base than with the actual onscreen content. As a film, The Hunger Games never strives to be anything more than by-the-numbers teen adventurism, narratively generic and visually reliant on murky CGI and Skittles' colored bourgeois costuming. As a reflection of mainstream society however, The Hunger Games property may prove to be something else: an intriguing reinforcement of gender norms and a timely confirmation that the frugal one percent thrives on the output of the less fortunate. The media landscape prevalent in the film mirrors, if not our thirst for sensationalism, our never-ending satisfaction in some good old fashioned schadenfreude.

You may have felt that the idea of people killing each other on a secluded island (or in the desolate woods, etc.) for sport is a concept much played out in recent times. Surely not a year goes by without kids, prison inmates, or aliens being used to carry out the task. The Hunger Games is no more offensive than the rest: set in one of those post-apocalyptic environments where the poor are selected to battle each other while television cameras record their every throat-slashing – think Roman gladiators without the analog – two children from each of the twelve designated ghetto districts, one male and one female, are chosen to compete in the annual Hunger Games, where only one person can be declared the victor. Our lead characters, Katniss and Peeta, are the unlucky folk from District 12 selected (well, Katniss volunteers as a substitute for her sister), and before long, they are trained to be natural born killers. That we never get to intimately know the other kids competing, essentially turning them into stock villain characters, is one of the film's many faults.

I could go on to describe how, through the implication of sponsorships, certain participants can gain the upper hand in the competition, or, thanks to the panopticon nature of the show, the director of the proceedings can throw an increasing numbers of obstacles in their way (giant dog-like creatures, forest fires), but why bother? It's all just diversions meant to slow down the inevitable tidy outcome; since there are two sequels to go, the final five minutes of the film juggle between optimism and pessimism like an Orwellian, Truman Show mishmash, never sure how to wrap up a story that still has a lot more to go.

That the characterization of our noble heroine Katniss is regarded as a role model for young girls is interesting given the way she is beautified up when off the battlefield and ultra-maternalized while on. In times of murder and chaos, why stop to share mocking jay whistles with the competition? And without giving anything away, the winner of The Hunger Games serves as both a sexually progressive and sexually restrictive view of modern times. 75 years running and we are still dependent on the opposite sex for survival? I guess familiarity breeds ratings.

An end of the world melodrama set to medium cool, Abel Ferrara's 4:44 Last Day on Earth, serves as a right-wing nightmare in its confirmation of Al Gore's global warming fears. Set hours before the world will cease to exist (4:44 AM EST, scientists have somehow predicted), the film takes the common microscopic approach by focusing on two lovers, Cisco and Sky, biding their time before the planet implodes. What to do with the time you've got? Paint something abstract, make love, watch local and global news, and catch up with old friends, of course. It's amazing how many people are on Skype these days; seemingly the ultimate communication device in times of despair, the program is used multiple times as if advertising itself as the preferred mode of breaking off with hardly seen loved ones. He who has Skype has closure.

Obviously low-budget, 4:44 Last Day on Earth works nonetheless as intimate urbanized drama, well acted by its leading man Willem Dafoe as the one tortured soul who doesn't seem at peace with what's to come. Cisco keeps a journal of the impending events, realizing of course that they will be of no use tomorrow, and his need to make peace with his daughter and ex-lover (who he left to shack up with the much younger Skye) helps viewers identify with his plight. When he later wrestles with getting high or staying clean for the global disaster, we sympathize with him – he is advised not to take the drugs, but when you're scheduled to perish tomorrow, addiction isn't something you're going to have to worry much about. Similarly when the couple decides to have unprotected sex, Ferrara humorously has us contemplate the consequences. If Skye becomes impregnated and they knowingly die in the morning, will Rick Santorum label her a baby-killing liberal? Or if she uses protection, will Rush Limbaugh call her a slut? Decisions, decisions.

Running a short but draggy eighty minutes, it would be ironic to call Ferrara's far-reaching film one in which nothing much happens, but what you see is what you get. It's all run up with no payoff. Cisco later takes a stroll after a lovers' quarrel to visit some buddies, and one gets the sense that Ferrara is trying desperately to open up the spatial limitations of his movie. He even tries to go expansive, using real stock and archival footage (from, among other sources, Al Jazeera) edited in to show the world in both chaotic turmoil and peaceful tranquility. Some of it drills the point home – the Charlie Rose and NY1 footage, for example – while other moments feel too clustered and imposing. Still, there is something to be said about a visualist who uses found footage to paint our future damnation with familiar imagery. 

Its parts better than its whole, 4:44 Last Day on Earth is as optimistic a movie about the end of the world as we are going to get. It reaffirms and reassures that when man's back is up against the wall, he will make peace with his fellow brethren. Love makes the world go round and it remains a presence when it stops. The Chinese delivery man? Cisco gives him something better than money as payment in his final hours: he proves him with an outlet to Skype home. Although not a film for everyone, Ferrara focuses less on science than on humanity, and makes good sociological points. Out strolling the streets, Cisco sees a down-on-her-luck prostitute looking for work. Even at the very end, we are desperate for human interaction to help us contextualize our dead-end predicament.