Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

I think the film we are currently working on is pretty much related to the theme of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fiction, so I decided to do some research and write something about it. 

Apocalyptic/Post-Apocalyptic fiction, these two categories are part of sci-fi genre. It has something to do with apocalypticism, which is a religion that believe the world/human civilization/lives on this planet will come to an end very soon. In the world of films and literature, zombies, disastrous outbreak, space plagues, mysterious invasion from outer space and all are also counted into this genre. I think this theme is kinda cool and interesting because I pretty much believe that our advance technology will grant us quite a bad impact someday. Anyway, the word "apocalypse" is actually retrieved from the Greek word which basicallty means the end of the world. So that is like the general idea of this stuff in a nutshell.

Actually this apocalyptic theme has shown up in the world of literature since the late 1800 but not so popular until the nuclear bomb has been dropped in 1945. After that it seems like the world became more and more aware of nuclear holocaust, especially during cold war when everyone was threatened by the thought that nuclear warfare would become real someday. Between 1960s to 1980s, a popular theme in the literature was the survival of a pack of people after WWIII or nuclear holocaust. H.G Well's Time Machine, Peter George's Dr. Strangelove and Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes are some of the examples.

This reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I read last summer. the book is about a guy and his son who somehow survives the unspecified event that actually destroy human civilization. Not so surprisingly, after reading this I had become really depressed. I mean, McCarthy did not even give these two guys names. But it's a really good story and I decided I will not spoil the ending and everything here.

Besides literature, we can see this theme in many films, even in the major Hollywood ones. Terminator, The Matrix, 28 Days Later, and Planet of the Apes, for example, can be categorized as post-apocalyptic movies as well. In these movies, world has come to an end with several different reasons. Some are because of plagues, some are because of slave robots turn bad, some are because of space invaders with dark purpose. To see people facing a grave danger of somewhat the end of the world might be quite exciting. Sure it might give you a sick beat of heart-pounding but the interesting part is not the end of humanity; it's not about how it all ends but more like the way people try to cope with it and to survive - to rebuild their lives - that is really interesting in my opinion. 

So here comes our The End of August at the Hotel Ozone! (To be honest I skipped some parts of the movie but I surely will watch it again with other guys sometime soon) It's pretty much like other post-apocalyptic films with a band of survivors going on a quest for the sake of humanity. The cause of the downfall here is a nuclear holocaust which shows at the very beginning of the movie. I really like the idea of the countdown instead of showing the picture of the explosions because it's made the scene more poetic in a sense of loss. The band of survivors here are group of nomadic girls who went on a quest of finding canned-food/something edible to eat in order to survive. It somehow reminds me of The Road because aside from the aforementioned there's nothing much in the story line and the pace goes really really slow in this film. One good thing about this movie is that it is a great example of a post-apocalyptic film because everything in the film is kind of believable; all the girls look savage, barbaric and dirty; there are some disturbing scenes to made it look real and natural, too (the scenes where they kill the dog and the cow, for example) So far I haven't decided yet whether I like this movie or what. But I'll know for sure after I watch it for like, the 3rd time.