Venue:  Ster Kinekor Maerua Mall
Directors: Albert and Allen Hughes
Screenplay: Gary Whitta
Cast: Denzel Washington; Gary Oldman; Michael Gambon; Jennifer Beals; Malcolm Macdowell; Mila Kunis; Frances de la Tour.
Genre: Sci-fi allegory; drama; action
Rating: 4.5

Here is the first post-apocalyptic film of the destruction of human civilization which carries profound messages, cleverly layered with symbolism, instead of the recent fare (2012; Wall-E, and I am Legend) which merely hammers home visually the violence and destruction which reduces man to his original bestial instincts for survival. In this film, despite the usual depiction of the desertification of earth, the profundity of the film depends upon one man’s quest to preserve the essential good, the spirit of hope and renewal, which is essentially symbolized in ‘the book of Eli.’
Eli (Washington) is both pioneer and prophet. He has responded to a calling, a voice which led him to the book and exhorted him to ‘go west’ to take the book where it truly belongs; in return, he is promised protection en route. The Hughes brothers cleverly meld the notion of the western (complete with the gunslinger confrontations in the western saloon and the main street of a dusty, forgotten, pioneering enclave in the middle of no-where) with the early morality plays in Europe, in which every human choice and action represented the difference between right and wrong. However, the film is much more than the fusion of the western with the religious pilgrimage. The main metaphor, or symbol, revolves around the notion of how man can truly begin again in a meaningful way, looking beyond material needs and the social organization to civilize and rebuild communities in which people are prepared to work together, instead of forcing others to submit to raw power. he visual symbols are magnificent. In this post-apocalyptic world, there is a conspicuous lack of colour: sepia cinematic tones convey a world which is grey-brown: the colour of desert, of dust, and of dirty skin. A suicidal hanging man in a deserted shack is covered with grey layers of dust, reminiscent of “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. Survivors, we are told, lived underground, or hid away from the sun for a year; they are still doing so as Eli makes his thirty-year pilgrimage, during which he reads and memorises his book, the only one in his possession. Dark, dingy interiors, in which survivors cower away from light, become symbolic: they cannot see the light, metaphorically speaking. In one scene, the broken frames of a window behind Carnegie, (Oldman) are silhouetted by light into broken crosses. In early scenes, Eli shelters in shacks, lit only by a candle, to light his book, or by a fire, which provides sufficient light for him to continue his reading. The significance of light is climaxed in a shootout at a lonely farmhouse in the middle of the desert, in which bullet holes allow shafts of golden sunshine to punctuate the gloom of death within.
The conflict between light and darkness is highlighted in other ways, too. Two characters, Claudia (Beals) and Eli, can see but cannot see. Other savage barbarians cannot see but see. A visual symbol for this clever paradox is the gas mask, as primitive as those worn in World War One, which seems to be conventional battle-dress for rag-tag vigilante groups that roam the desert to pillage and destroy. The opening scene is of a woody copse of trees, shedding dead leaves like confetti upon a thick carpet of dead leaves. Light filters in grey shards, highlighting the gas mask of a fallen human, faceless and without spirit. A hairless cat, with wrinkled, grey skin, hovers purposelessly among the corpses and dead leaves, until an arrow finds its true home.
Two different kinds of leaders covet the book. Carnegie (Oldman), a name which may be ironically symbolic, wants the book because it’s a “powerful weapon” which has already proved its bonding potential in the previous world. Solara (Kunis) is Claudia’s daughter, who joins the pilgrimage with Eli like a disciple, learning from him, protecting him, and joining his belief in the ultimate good of his book, even though she cannot read. The name, Solara, evokes the sun, the giver of life and light. It’s she who strides off along a lonely road, assuming the responsibility from Eli of continuing his quest.  Water is the most valuable resource, assuming the same spiritual symbolism as for the Christian disciples, the “fishers of men”.
Solara knows and shows Eli a water source, unknown to most.  Eli recites, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” for Solara in a poignant moment and tells her of “the flower of faith” which kept him strong throughout his thirty-year pilgrimage. “Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”  There is humour in this film, although this might seem inappropriate. It’s not. The stupidity of mankind, the propensity for violence, and the strong instinct for survival, is lightly exploited for humour: the best cameo roles are George (Gambon) and Martha (de la Tour), an elderly couple who have quaintly preserved the interior of their house against all odds, although there is an impressive graveyard at the back where the vegetables used to be to testify to their ingenuity. Carnegie sends out military groups of illiterate scavengers to capture books: an early seizure gleans Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’ in paperback but this is not what he wants.
In the final confrontation, Eli is ordered to throw out the book or be shot: he throws out a rectangular package which is a bomb instead. Although Carnegie captures the book, Eli’s successfully takes it to its destination – in Alcatraz – another symbol that the cradle of the renewal of civilisation must be a prison, a fortress not unlike the medieval monasteries in Europe. There, the book, which helped to create the ultimate destruction but is ironically the only hope for the human spirit, is recited by Eli to a post-apocalyptic ‘monk’ (McDowell). Eli had the only book of its kind: all others had been destroyed. Earlier, he has told Solara that “…before, we threw everything away; now everything is precious.” He starts by reciting, “In the beginning was the Word…” and “Let there be Light – and there was Light.”