You're in Paris. It's 1910, the year of the floods. You've been touring a doll factory. After looking around the workshop on the first floor (American: second floor) where the celluloid dolls are made, you go up to the second floor (that is, the third floor in US English). You stay there for a few hours, unaware that the Seine is flooding. The ground floor is soon completely underwater. The level rises to almost waist-height in the workshop, shorting out a fuse box. Sparks catch on the inflammable celluloid dolls. By the time you come back down, half the workshop is already ablaze.
You have to get out of the building. There are large windows behind you, not blocked by the fire, but you're on the first floor. Hurrying to the stairs, you find the stairwell completely submerged. To get down to the exit you'd have to swim underwater. It's only about fifteen or twenty metres, but the sun has set and the electric lights have fused. The only illumination down there is whatever is cast from the flames in the workshop.
This is in fact a scene from the 2023 movie The Beast. I won't give any spoilers except to say that the movie is 150 minutes of your life that you'll never get back, and that confusing and strident are not the same things as enigmatic and beguiling. If you do want a movie that conveys real emotional mystery, watch The Double Life of Veronique instead. Or you could read the Henry James short story, "The Beast in the Jungle", that the director Bertrand Bonello claims to have been inspired by.
But this is not a film review, it's a post about how screenwriters really ought to hire gamebook or RPG players to stress-test their scenarios. Because I can see an easy way to get out of the building which obviously didn't occur to the filmmakers because they didn't have a full mental picture of the characters' surroundings. (They also showed it as daylight outside. Unlikely at 7:30pm in January, but it allowed them to provide a lot more light in the submerged ground floor.)
OK, so what would you do? And can you think of any other movies where the characters missed an obvious solution?
I clocked that bit in 'The Beast' as well, Dave. And only 15 or 20 metres for the swim? I'd think twice if that was in feet! Some allowance can be made for panic, but when decisions are that idiotic you stop caring about the characters. I've also developed an involuntary sarcastic laugh at stupid bits like that! My biggest irritation about 'The Beast' though was paying £3.49 for it, only to realise seconds later I could have ordered it for free.
ReplyDeleteEqually as jarring, I watched Alien: Romulus the other day, which had a line of dialogue so bad it defied belief they kept it in. Right up there in the 'cringe' stakes with Han Solo stepping on Jabba The Hut's tail in the newer editions.
'Jaws: The Revenge' had an obvious solution to a problem. If you suspect a shark is stalking you, probably best not go out in a boat.
I paid £3.49 for it as well, Andy, but I'd pay twice that to get the time back I wasted!
DeleteShould I ask what that line of dialogue in Alien: Romulus was? It can't be dafter than some of the things characters said and did in Prometheus... surely?
I won't do a complete spoiler, Dave, just to say it was a line from Aliens quoted wholesale. Don't get me wrong, I like a quote as much as the next person given the right context (Heart of Ice for one), but it didn't work on any level here. Apparently there are lines from other Alien films, but I didn't clock those, possibly due to some of the dialogue being muffled by the music, another bugbear of mine. As with Prometheus, just all a bit disappointing, Then again, I thought Alien: Resurrection was quite good, so what do I know?!
DeleteI had a look at the Wiki page for Alien Resurrection, Andy, but it doesn't stir any memories. For a moment there I thought it was the one with Adrien Brody, but it turns out that was in the Predator series. So if they did start recycling lines of dialogue (or even whole scripts) I'm not sure if I'd notice. (What an admission, considering how many movies I quote from in my books!)
DeleteSo wait a minute. What about an answer to Dave's q. Clearly if the water is so high to submerge the stairs to the first floor, or is it the ground floor I lost count, jump out the window, can't be that far down.
ReplyDeleteYep, the water level must have been just a few inches below those upstairs windows.
DeleteIn terms of escape, the only other point of exit you reference is the (UK) 1st floor window? Have I got that right?
ReplyDeletePresumably if the ground floor is so flooded that it's an underwater swim to get to the exit, then the water level is just under that first floor window, meaning that one option would be stepping out of that window into the deep, very cold, fast flowing and hazard filled water below? Maybe in that context the underwater swim is a suicide attempt, rather than an attempt to escape?
I haven't seen the movie, and probably won't now, but happy to join in with the general bagging of it to point out that it is equally unlikely that you would fail to notice over the several hours that it took Paris to flood, that Paris was getting flooded - so badly flooded in fact that it's up to the 1st floor windows....
Certainly I'd have gone out through the (UK 1st floor) window, but the plot called for them to die so the writers never even considered it. That's by no means the worst thing about the movie, either.
DeleteMy reply was initially going to be that a slide at my local water park probably has less of a drop, but thought I'd leave to others that hadn't seen 'The Beast'. Alien Resurrection at least has its own 'comic book' vibe. Although post 'Blade Runner 2049' my first thought after watching a film these days is 'That's not scoring very high on the Daveometer!'
DeleteOn a different note, I haven't got as far as I'd hoped with Vulcanverse, Dave, the school holidays having now intervened. I'm liking it very much so far though and will leave a review on all of them when finished. ETA, 16 weeks! I didn't rip off Aliens there, honest.
I hope you'll spot every single movie reference in the Vulcanverse books, Andy. I should have kept a list as I was writing, as I've forgotten half of them myself now.
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