Toronto: 'George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead'

I just walked out of Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha, not because it was unbearably bad or unbearably intense but because it was ordinary. I read the papers. I understand the situation in Iraq is, as Tone-Loc would put it, a big old mess. But I'm not interested in a foursquare, pseudo-doc style recreation of events in Haditha (there's no attempted formal coup in the mold of DePalma's Redacted here). If I wanna know anything, I wanna know how the various verdicts and lack thereof in the Haditha case came about. (I'm not asking for anybody to leave some such thing in comments, just so you know.) And I'm not going to see any more Iraq-themed films while I'm here. In any event, the Iraq-themed film I liked best was, well, Romero's, which technically isn't an Iraq-themed film at all. It is, yes, another cannibal zombie film. Cannibal zombies make great metaphors, don't they? Unlike 2005's fabulous Land of the Dead, which was conventional in form, Diary sees Romero entering Blair Witch territory—not to mention Redacted territory. (The switch is, one friend pointed out, that while the Blair Witch kids are hapless, clueless, unpleasant solipsists, and dumb to boot, Diary's convincingly presented youths represent a sharp, proficient group of truth-deliverers. Romero believes the children are our future!) Ostensibly the edited version of footage variously shot and uploaded by a college filmmaker whose Mummy-movie project is interrupted by an outbreak of walking dead, Diary is, besides an examination of us-against-them and us-against-us politics and a trenchant commentary on the it's-okay-to-torture mentality that's encroaching on America, one of the most revealing and fascinating critiques of image-making since Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. Its execution is far more consistently accomplished and convincing than that of DePalma's film. And it still manages to deliver eye-popping and gut-spilling galore. It's an ingenious, energetic, and extremely plugged-in piece—nice to see from a director who turned 67 this year.

Comments

[bill]

I know you and I don't always get along, but I'm going to ask anyway: Are you planning to review "Before the Devil Knows Your Dead"?

[bill]

"You're". Whew, that was close.

[G. Kenny]

Bill—my rule at film festivals is that I only write up what I see at the festival. As it happens, I saw "Devil" a few weeks ago in New York in preparation for an interview with Sidney Lumet for the DGA Quarterly (which, you'll be happy to know, is very thoroughly copy-edited). I think it's very strong indeed, one of his strongest in a while, and I'll be writing about it at greater length in another context.

[bill]

I'm glad to hear that about the DGA Quarterly's standards. Further, I'm very glad to hear that about Lumet's film. I'm really pumped for it.

And for Romero's film, as well. I'll adopt a wait-and-see attitude about the political content, because, well, you can probably guess the rest. I do agree with you about "Land of the Dead", though. That's an underrated film.

[James Keepnews]

not for nothing, but precisely what was "fabulous" (much less "underrated") about the warmly received (by critics), pedestrian, trite, uninsightful, laughably unscary _land of the dead_? i am second to no one in my admiration of g.a.r., at least up to '79-'81 or thereabouts, but are you freakin' kidding me? rob zombie has more to say about the breakdown of modern american society than mr. romero's films since _dawn_. was it when dennis hopper said "we don't deal with terrorists"? trenchant! perhaps when john leguizamo asked hopper if fiddler's grove was "restricted"? welcome back a term not used in american film since _gentleman's agreement_! perhaps the deeply resonant critique of capitalist cannibalizing of the proletariat by having the living scrounge for commodities in "Union Town". wow, shades of _norma rae_. the arresting compositions and formal grace, if disappointing narrative follow-through? right, sorry -- that was _bruiser_. i know -- it was the memorable supporting performance by the actress whose sole line was "call me motown"? help me out here, i'm running out of ideas, sort of like george "they're us" romero. though g-d knows i hope you're right about _children shouldn't play with blair witches_...sorry, _diary of the dead_!

[G. Kenny]

Tell you the truth, it was more the zombies crossing the river without swimming that did it for me. Although if you were less than thrilled by "Land's" politics—which I never thought were all that different from the politics of the first "Night of the Living Dead" or "The Crazies," to name two more or less acknowledged classics—you're not likely to warm to this one, either.

[James Keepnews]

glenn -- it's hard more me to think of a film whose politics HAVE thrilled me..._hour of the furnaces_, maybe? of course, the lack of subtlety in that film has more to do with its status as non-fictional critique of empire, vs. mr. romero's more fictional one. yet, even compared to that classic bit of agitprop, _land_ comes off as puerile and ham-handed. note that, whatever the politics of _night_, especially the racial politics, no one came right out and said what they were, leaving us to glean them post-traumatically. 'twas never thus again, though i do love _the crazies_ for its own avalanche of atrocities. politics would never keep me away from romero's films, but, dear g-d, one more instance of "they're us" in his zombie oeuvre just might...