SPOILER ALLERT
The Book of Eli finally came out in Brazil, last Friday and I managed to watch it on Sunday. I was excited about it because after a long fasting of playing villains, Gary Oldman is once again embodying evil - and that's what he does best IMO. I was excited by this idea but I didn't expected that much from the movie. The good thing is, I got surprised.
There's nothing really new about the story, and some points reminds us about lots of old westerns, Mad Max and other post apocalyptic movies. But it doesn't seems to be a copy but a tribute to all these movies and styles.
In a future destroyed by nuclear war caused by religious fundamentalism, people live from letf overs of the old times. The deserts are full on thiefs, rapers and all sort of bad guys and there is this misterious wanderer played by Denzel Washington. He just keeps walking to West carrying a book that he reads everyday. One day he ends up in a small city ruled by Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a guy who knows where to find clean water and use this to control the place. Carnegie is, initially amazed by Eli's fighting skills and tries to persuade him to stay in town by sending his blind mistress daughter (Mila Kunis) to "entertain" him. The guy declines the offer and ask her to have dinner with him, but before he says a little prayer. The girl, who have never seen someone praying, is amazed by those words and in the next day, she does the same while she's eating with her mother. Carnegie, then realizes that Eli has the book he is seeking. By this time, you must have alredy noticed that the book in question in the Bible and that this same book was the reason of the war that terminated civilization. Carnegie wants the book because people is going to listen to him, by listening those words, the book is, for him, a way to rule the world. Eli believe that those words can free people. That's the main plot. Eli runs away with his book, in his mission to take this book in a safe place in West and Carnegie goes after him. The end is quite surprising and I liked it.
I LOVED the cinematography. The begining is entirely black and while, the colors beging to appear slowly but they are always faded and the sky is always B&W. The location is beautiful. The Hughes Bros are great directors, the whole thing showed how desolated earth was and how helpless people were, and how Carnegie's plans would work if he succeded his quest. For me, some scenes are like being inside the director's mind and some takes are really impressive and amazing.
Carnegie is an educated man, a survivor, someone who was alive when the whole thing happened and wants to use his knowledge and religion to control people's mind and gain more power. Gary is, as always, awesome. Everything is perfect, accent (a different one, that he never played before), expressions... At some point you almost begin to agree with Carnegie, a thing that Denzel Washington can't do playing Eli.
I was a bit afraid that the religious aura would take over the film but that doesn't happens. The film doesn't intend to make you a believer but, of course, it leads you to refletion. I don't know much about other countries's reality but here in Brazil there are lots, and I mean LOTS of preachers that use the power of the words in the Bible (and let's admit, they are powerful) to get money, to get power. Very few people use that book as a way to be a better person each day, as a life guider (in a critial way, I don't mean, follow it without thinking about them).
The movie isn't a waste of time or money and totally worths to be seen in the teathre because of the beautiful cinematography.
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