There's a question that The Impossible, the new film from Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), demands be asked, and that is — is it easier for audiences to relate to tragedy when it's filtered through white characters? This is not a new issue. The movies have a long tradition of approaching stories about people of color, both at home and abroad, through the experiences of Caucasian protagonists, a habit that speaks to both (probably not unfounded) ideas about audience preferences and prejudices and the linked reality of what most of our movie stars still look like. The Impossible is set during the 2004 tsunami that hit South East Asia the day after Christmas, killing over 230,000 people and devastating Indonesia, India, Thailand and other countries, but it's about how one expat family on holiday weathers the tragedy, an uplifting tale of survival and endurance amidst the ruin.
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File under "Too Soon," perhaps: Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star in The Impossible as a couple on holiday with their two young children in Thailand when the 2004 tsunami tragedy sweeps the region, leaving hundreds of thousands dead in 14 countries. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), the disaster drama is based on one family's experience and makes use of realistic CG and sets to recreate the event. And judging from the newly unveiled (and kind of terrifying) Spanish teaser poster, expect an intense treatment of the tragedy as seen through the eyes of the victims on the ground.
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This is lovely: Ridley Scott is executive producing the "self-portrait" doc Japan in a Day, in the crowd-sourced collected footage vein of Kevin MacDonald's Life in a Day, to draw attention to and benefit the survivors of Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster. Fuji will donate 200 cameras to the project, which will cull from submissions uploaded to Youtube on March 11 with all profits reportedly going back to the victims. Now that's how you show support, Hollywood. [Deadline]
Perhaps in response to all those people left stymied by Hereafter's Oscar nomination for visual effects (especially when Tron: Legacy got shut out of the category, poor thing), Warner Bros. have released a shot-by-shot reel showing how VFX supervisor Michael Owens and Scanline VFX put together that nine-minute opening tsunami sequence. And when you see how the live-action parts came together combining CG, green screen, water tanks, and on-location photography -- well, "Oscar-nominated Hereafter" doesn't sound so silly anymore.
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