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madali
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« on: August 04, 2011, 01:50:PM » |
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The Wages of Fear [Le salaire de la peur] (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953)
In small town, young men wander around unemployed. The town is somewhere in South America and it has an international airport, which desperate foreigners have used it to make their way to the town, only to realize that the town is a dead end in their life. There is no work, and to leave the town, they need money to travel, plane ticket is expensive and by road, also far from anywhere worthwhile. In the city, the Americans are managing an oil well company, but not much opportunity seems from that project to the people.
The first half an hour of the movie is just the life in this city. Hot, sweaty, people are usually quickly angered, and everyone is desperate to leave. And then there comes an opportunity. The oil company wants four men for a job and is willing to pay USD 2,000 to each of them. All they have to do is transport material from point A to point B using a truck, two men to a truck.
What’s the catch?
They have to transport nitroglycerine, a material that is highly dangerous. And on this bumpy, bad road, sudden movements with the truck could cause the whole material to explode. The rest of the movie is a perfect example on how you create suspense. The story at this point is basic. Drive the truck, be careful, or you die. There is no big background aspects of the characters that help us sympathize with them more, no sick child, no ransom to pay, no dying wish, nothing. Just a bunch of lowdown desperate men ready to risk their lives for money.
And it’s enough. The movie would have been literally edge of the seat if I was sitting on a seat, but since I was lying on the ground, I should probably say the movie was so suspenseful at times that I would literally sit up.
4/5
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