Norway has made its first disaster movie

[nineveh_uk]

Bølgen (The Wave) involves – you guessed it – a giant wave/inland tsunami that happens when half a mountain slides off into the fjord. It is based on a real place, under a real threat, and on real incidents of this type in the twentieth century. The actual event isn’t implausible. There’s a BBC clip of an interview here with a couple of sailors who actually survived a ‘megatsunami’ event of this type in Alaska 1958, in which the wave in question was 30m high in the middle of the fjord and destroyed trees on its shore 500m above the normal sea level.

So far, I am intrigued. Unfortunately I then read the synopsis, which goes as follows:

The experienced geologist Kristian Eikfjord has accepted a job offer out of town. He is getting ready to move from the city of Geiranger with his family, when he and his colleagues measure small geological changes in the underground. Kristian gets worried and his worst nightmare is about to come true, when the alarm goes off and the disaster is inevitable. With less than 10 minutes to react, it becomes a race against time in order to save as many as possible including his own family.

New setting, new language, same old plot…

Just once, I’d like a disaster film premise that goes like this:

The Volcano/Tsunami/Earthquake/Whatever

Jo Smith is a nuclear physicist/geologist/volcanologist/civil engineer who notices something disturbing in the readouts for the power station/earthquake fault/volcano/dam/aeroplane. Instantly Jo informs their colleagues who all take it extremely seriously. Some additional observation/readings are carried out. They contact the local authorities and the existing disaster plan is put into action. Said plan has been drawn up based on evidence, and has been rehearsed by the local community.*

The plan is carried out. The disaster happens. Some people may die or be injured, but overall the actions are judged a success. Jo’s entire family is on holiday with their much-loved in-laws and play no part in the story. Anybody with a dog lets it off its lead to run to higher ground/swim alone, because dogs are better at that than humans.

Perhaps you are thinking that this sounds a bit boring? It needn’t be, with due attention to character and script. There can still be the giant volcanic eruption/whatever. And it couldn’t possibly be more boring than sitting through the umpteenth version of the same bloody story just with a different disaster.

TL:DR You don’t have to base everything on Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

*Which is very helpful in such circumstances. See the evacuation of Rabaul in a volcanic eruption.

Comments

[legionseagle]

To be honest, a lot of Robert Harris' Pompeii is "Conscientious Roman civil engineer gets very worried about why the water supply in the Bay of Naples has been interrupted; he contacts the local military chief with his findings; the local military chief is absolutely fascinated, quizzes him in a detailed way and then offers him all the resources he needs to carry out an evacuation of the civilian population."

It doesn't actually work, but it definitely avoids many of the cliches.

[caulkhead]

Definitely not to be confused with last years film of the same name, which is very much of the classic disaster movie with added moustache-twirling villain variety (I mention this mainly because it gives me another excuse to link to the review http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/film/pompeii-film-review-9315124.html)

[nineveh_uk]

That review is worth linking to. The film, OTOH, sounds like it's the pits.

[nineveh_uk]

I have never got round to reading that, but from what I've heard, the "conscientious" bit overcomes a lot of the problems in that it's about the knowledge at the period, what a man in that position could do and how he might try to approach this weird thing going on, rather than as described in the LJ comments, "Will A Man save His Family? Yes. Phew!"

Incidentally, Naples is built not on one active volcano, but two. With a third in the bay. Fascinated by volcanoes as I am, I am never, ever going near it when there is anything remotely serious going on.

[caulkhead]

I went last year, and spent a lot of time glancing suspiciously at cloud formations over Vesuvius, particularly the day we went to Herculaneum. It's probably one of those things that marks you out on sight as A Tourist.

[nineveh_uk]

The day I went to Herculaneum it thundered. From the direction of Vesuvius. I suspect that I was very obviously A Tourist. It did add some nice atmosphere, though.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

I am distracted from your sensible point by 'the city of Geiranger'. Even by Norwegian standards...!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, Geiranger has a population of 250...

[ylla.livejournal.com]

Might make it easier to save them all in 10 minutes, then.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Couple of supermarket trolleys for the young or infirm and you're sorted.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

That is smaller than the City and Royal Burgh of Kirkwall. Much smaller. And I never thought I would say that of a city.

Also, I have been to Geiranger, on a Hurtigruten cruise.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You are lucky not to be lying untold fathoms down! Now you mention it, there's no cruise ship in the trailers, but perhaps they felt that rehashing Titanic would be a step too far.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Doesn't every disaster film have to feature a cruise ship somewhere, even if the rest of the film is set in central Asia? :-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

There are some surprisingly large lakes in central Asia. They are probably lacking in cruise ships, though.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

This wouldn't stop Hollywood.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, King Edward Point, Adamstown, and West Island are all smaller "capital" cities, while the smallest capital of an independent nation is a touch larger than Geiranger, at 391 people; Ngerulmud, in Palau.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_capitals_by_population

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Those are really quite small numbers!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

They are, aren't they!

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Yes, it would be fascinating to see a disaster plot that did "realistic human drama", "engineering" and "logistics challenges" seriously instead of "Will A Man save His Family? Yes. Phew!"

I was on a train once not long after the East Midlands floods about five years ago, listening to an incredibly annoying man tell someone all about how poor the emergency planning had been for a wheelchair user like him, in huge detail, at length. He was both a) right and b) incredibly annoying, and I thought at the time what very interesting stories there must have been as you bundle several hundred people into a sports hall and figure out what to do with them.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I strive in my daily life not to come across as someone that people supposed to help me would be tempted to leave to drown ;-)

Errors or unforeseen things going wrong with the disaster plan would be fine in my desired film, but there is just so much territory that could be explored outside the usual "extreme peril, heroic strength, everything fine", but people don't. Though I did enjoy Force Majeure about a man who fails to save his family from a (false) threat and then can't admit to it.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I wrote a short story for my Swedish course about the Norwegians building a huge wall across Oslo Fjord in order to save Oslo from a monster wave - I wonder if I could claim that the film plagiarised my idea? Of course, in my version the whole planet ended up covered in water with a few surviving cities surrounded by really REALLY tall walls, but hey, it has a fjord and a big wave in it.

10 minutes to react makes it sound as if it might be a very short film...

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

You should sue! They only didn't pinch your whole idea because the genius was too great to be contained in a single film and they're waiting for the sequel.

I think the film contains a certain amount of before-and-after as well :-) Lots of mountain scenery, followed by water sloshing about. I've just found this different trailer, which shows footage of the aftermath of a historical incident.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Whatever-is-the-town-on Heimaey sprayed water onto lava to stop it spreading over the rest of the town; and ended up with a more sheltered harbour. It was an almost-perfect disaster, although one person did lose their life; a drug addict who stayed behind to ransack the pharmacy.

(This may have been the same pharmacy where the staff, forty years later, had excellent English, but did not understand "antihistamine"; which led to confused explanations and mimes until they got the message).

[azdak.livejournal.com]

"antihistamine"; which led to confused explanations and mimes

Customer: Buzz buzz ...mimes sting... Ow! .... indicates big toe swelling... gobbles pill... toe shrinks....

The Pharmacist shrugs

Customer: Atishoo atisshoo! Rubs eyes Atishoo! Gobbles pill.

Pharmacist: Oh, andhistamín töflur!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh, you were there? ;-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I once had to buy corticosteroid cream due to irritating itchy plants in Italy, without knowing the words of having a dictionary to hand. Fortunately the pharmacist did well at interpreting my use of the word "corticosteroid" in a bad Italian accent so I was not required to resort to my non-existent mime skills.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I had a similar conversation in a Dutch pharmacy, complicated by the fact that I was trying to buy antiseptic cream for a cut or graze that hadn't happen yet (it was a cycling holiday and I'm clumsy. The anticipated grazes happened that evening).

It turns out that although Dutch and English have a lot of shared/related words, 'antiseptic' isn't one of them (or not one that the pharmacist understood, anyway; Google claims it is, but it didn't work on the day), and 'ontsmetting-' isn't close enough from the other direction. Happily, the technique of each person speaking slowly in their own language and smiling hopefully was upheld by the discovery of 'disinfectant'/'desinfectie-'.

(I should note that the pharmacist did have good conversational English, in common with 95% of the other Dutch people I met. It was just the medical vocabulary that was a problem.)

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

I had a similar conversation in a Dutch pharmacy, complicated by the fact that I was trying to buy antiseptic cream for a cut or graze that hadn't happen yet (it was a cycling holiday and I'm clumsy. The anticipated grazes happened that evening).

It turns out that although Dutch and English have a lot of shared/related words, 'antiseptic' isn't one of them (or not one that the pharmacist understood, anyway; Google claims it is, but it didn't work on the day), and 'ontsmetting-' isn't close enough from the other direction. Happily, the technique of each person speaking slowly in their own language and smiling hopefully was upheld by the discovery of 'disinfectant'/'desinfectie-'.

(I should note that the pharmacist did have good conversational English, in common with 95% of the other Dutch people I met. It was just the medical vocabulary that was a problem.)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

My mother had to do a similar thing in a French pharmacist - her French was pretty good, but overwhelmed by "I don't know what we need, but my niece was stung by a jellyfish". Watching foreign tourists pantomime minor ailments must be one of the highlights of pharmacy.

(The French for jellyfish is "une méduse": neither me nor my mother ever forgot it.)

[aella_irene]

The French for tick, it turns out, is 'tique'.

This is good, as my mother's suggestion of showing the pharmacist would probably have resulted in me being done for public nudity.

(Walking in the countryside in a wraparound skirt: Bad plan.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I live in fear of ticks. And in a liberally-applied cloud of DEET.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

At least 'jellyfish' is pantomimable. I needed something to repair a broken bike mudguard, didn't know the French for duct tape/gaffer tape, and resorted to explaining to a bemused woman in a tourist office that I needed 'a sort of ribbon that you can stick...'. Turns out it's 'le gaffer'.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

PLease describe how exactly you think that jellyfish is pantomimable!

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

So, a textual description of a mime standing in for a verbal description in a foreign language? Er, this might not be the clearest way of communicating...

Anyway, what I think I'd do is use one hand for the jellyfish, moving back-of-the-hand-first in a wavy path towards my other arm while repeatedly touching the tips of the fingers together then spreading them out again like trailing tentacles. When that hand got to my other arm, it would brush a finger across it and I'd say "ow!", jerk away as if stung, etc.

I'm not saying it'd be immediately comprehensible (and I expect it'd be hilarious for bystanders) but I'd have an idea where to start, and given that I'm not gifted at miming, that's about as good as it's going to get.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

When I got stung by a jellyfish I got an apple rubbed on me. I'm not sure that it helped. All the discussions were in English, though!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

How do you mime "jellyfish"?

Also, next time I go to a foreign pharmacist I shall take a pen and paper and try drawing as the less embarrassing alternative.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That is the kind of volcanic disaster you want. Plus, as Wikipedia puts it "After the eruption, the islanders used heat from the cooling lava flows to provide hot water and to generate electricity. They also used some of the extensive tephra, fall-out of airborne volcanic material, to extend the runway at the island's small airport, and as landfill, on which 200 new houses were built."

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

That's taking "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" to new and brilliant extremes.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I have often (really!) thought that a small volcano starting up in the neighbourhood of some depressed area of Britain would do wonders for the local economy, as long as it was the right sort of volcano.

What I think is really nice is that the rebuilding was paid for by a hypothecated tax. You have to have a society that's feeling it has common interests to do that. Though perhaps it was hard to argue against, as any region that did could be told fine, next time you get struck by an avalanche/lava no money for you.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Curse our position away from the edge of a tectonic plate! I wonder if drilling would help.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten about those additional benefits.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I would very much like to watch your film. Seeing people being competent is always enjoyable, and the logistics of a disaster plan would be fascinating!

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't even mind a film about incompetent people as long as that was what it was about. A film about how Vesuvius hots up again, the city tries to prepare, but the task is mammoth and there's a limit to what you can do anyway, and it's going to be very grim? Fine! Just not "Naples is totally unprepared, but don't worry! Maverick scientist Marco will get his cute daughter to safety."

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

This is why I liked Gravity so much, and am looking forward to The Martian. Nature is dramatic and terrifying enough without having to throw in cartoonish human villains, immense stupidity on the part of the protagonists, or annoying moppets who are ultimately impossible to harm. OK, Gravity does have the extraneous subplot about her daughter, but it's not about rescuing her before the oxygen runs out, so not really the same thing.