The word "provincial" is usually used in a derogatory context, but those of us who live in the Canadian province of Ontario might revel in the capital-P-provincial aspects of Bruce MacDonald's Pontypool. It's an Ontario zombie movie. The premise: language is a virus --- more specifically, the spoken English language is a virus that's taken hold in small-town Southern Ontario, and the Quebéçois militia are circling in helicopters and gunning infected people down. In true zombie-movie form, the real enemy is a mysteriously contagious disease of epidemic proportions, only this time the subtext isn't AIDS, it's Alzheimers. Scary like 28 Days Later, classicaly Western, conservative, and indulgently post-apocalyptic like Omega Man, Pontypool's neuroscientific veracity leaves Inception in the dust and surpasses even neuro-geek Charlie Kauffman's Synedoche New York by leaps and bounds. I mean bonds…, uh, bonding. Um..I mean bounding.. and leaps. I mean leaks…..
Three thumbs up! (wait...how many thumbs do I have again? Maybe we should count this in tomatoes, I know I have three tomatoes...)
SPOILER ALERT: Pontypool has typo in its name, plus the letters p o n o l (in no specific order) (with a captial T and that ryhmes with P and that stands for pool...or something...okay, this isn't really a proper spoiler...). It is a real place.
"Language is a Virus" is possibly a reference to the haunting chapter 'Cross the Wounded Galaxies' from Burroughs' novel 'The Soft Machine'. - VB 6-14-2011 1:39 am
Three thumbs up! (wait...how many thumbs do I have again? Maybe we should count this in tomatoes, I know I have three tomatoes...)
SPOILER ALERT: Pontypool has typo in its name, plus the letters p o n o l (in no specific order) (with a captial T and that ryhmes with P and that stands for pool...or something...okay, this isn't really a proper spoiler...). It is a real place.
- sally mckay 6-13-2011 3:36 pm
Laurie Anderson quotes William Burroughs:
"Language is a Virus" is possibly a reference to the haunting chapter 'Cross the Wounded Galaxies' from Burroughs' novel 'The Soft Machine'.
- VB 6-14-2011 1:39 am