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Annie: "Oh, Lord, that guilt thing is very strong and can be quite upsetting when one's helpless to do anything about it."
Guilt gets a bad rap : ) A little bit of it goes a long way. You just have to be very discriminating as to what to feel guilt about. Otherwise, it will make you miserable. But a little, in the right places, can be restorative. So says the hopelessly hopeful lapsed Catholic : ) Guilt is in the heart of the beholden.
Yes, it is a film of a life and death struggle, but
The Old Man and the Sea and
All Is Lost are quite different expressions of that struggle. Nor is it
Kon Tiki. It stands apart in a number of ways. The most striking difference is the absence of dialog and any other characters other than the one character that Redford plays. I don't even think we learn his name. Which is astounding. We never see land. Every time hope surfaces it is, quite literally, drowned in the reality of hopelessness. It is acted beautifully by Redford, whom I had previously thought a good actor, but not outstanding. He (Redford) is seventy-seven when he performs in this film. I can't imagine doing it at twenty-seven. Yes, I'm sure there were techniques used to dramatize the scenes, but there is no doubt that Redford was put through some pretty hefty physical challenges to pull it off.
Exactly who he is is something of a mystery. You don't know his name, you don't know his past, you don't know why he's in the middle of the Indian Ocean, you don't know what kind of sea-faring experience he has (although you have to assume he has considerable just by virtue of the fact t that he's alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean and able to use maps and nautical tools and is quite resourceful when faced with relentless life-threatening danger).
I suppose the thing that most absorbed me was the acting performance. I also think it was expertly filmed and directed. For a person to hold command of the viewer from start to finish without uttering a word, with using only situational facial expressions, body language, etc. to tell a deeply moving story about survival, isolation, life and death is no small feat. It awakes a kind of existential tug-of-war in me. At least during the time I watched it and thought about it. I quite easily slipped back into my usual deferential, happy-go-lucky self to write this
Here's the wiki page just for the movie in case anyone else is interested.
.