The Quiet Earth

I've been condemned to live

1985's THE QUIET EARTH, for its first thirty minutes or so, was becoming a new cult favorite.  It was highly encouraging. It wasn't the first post apocalyptic drama I'd seen, but handled the initial stages of the crises, existential and otherwise, so beautifully.   Zac Hobson awakens one morning, one like a thousand others, and gradually learns, after noting a deserted city and a plane crash with no corpses, that he is the last man on earth.  Hobson is a scientist in New Zealand who will come to believe he is in part responsible for this mass extinction.  One that surely had something to do with a brief flash of red light.  The result of a project to create an international energy grid.  Director Geoff Murphy and the screenwriters don't go into too much arcane detail in their science fiction film.  Maybe just enough for the faithful.

Hobson wanders grocery stores, football fields, train stations. Everywhere, a playground.  He eventually decides he should live in better quarters, and subsequently indulges himself with every excess.  But, he does go a bit batty after a few weeks, what with no one to interact with and all.  Conversely, introverts reading this may believe it is a dream scenario..  Anyhow, Hobson (Bruno Lawrence), in the throes of madness, will don women's undergarments and deliver a speech to cardboard cuttouts of folks like Elizabeth II and Richard Nixon, declaring himself President of this new world.  To Adolph Hitler he dismisses, "You've already had your turn!"

These scenes exhibit a continual fascination.  What would you do? The grim discoveries.  The realizations.  The fear.  The exhilaration.  These ideas could go on for millions of feet of film.  Perhaps it should've, because once Zac finds another survivor, a cute ginger named Joanne (Alison Routledge), THE QUIET EARTH begins a slow descent.  Still a good movie, mind you, but more traditional plot elements emerge.  At the hour mark, one more human is discovered.  An indigenous countryman/soldier named Api (Pete Smith).  I'm afraid the film devolves further.  Predictable contrivances and conflicts take over.  Things we've seen in hundreds of other movies and television programs.  A shame.

If THE QUIET EARTH had kept Zac as the true last man, someone who would learn to adapt, and discover (on his own) what exactly happened and how to prevent any further red flashes, we may have had a truly special and unique entertainment.  Surely Lawrence, co-writer of the screenplay with Bill Baer and Sam Pillsbury, could've stuck with Zac and his predicament and not had to involve others, with the accordingly inevitable power struggles and sexual tensions.  That stuff, frankly, is old hat and dull.  THE QUIET EARTH's initial scenes prove that less is more, and that more than one actor isn't always necessary for fine drama.

But....the much discussed final scene is quite something, and ripe for your interpretation.  And possibly worthy of a continuing story, another movie.  With one last man, please.