The Road : Esthétique et perception de l’Après, ou la palette sémantique des gris

Abstract

Many Hollywoodian disaster blockbusters feature a dauntless hero struggling with the (digital) effects of immediate post-chaos. Special effects indeed structure the aesthetics of After Shock films, and regularly display a mutant –or other creature– inhabited science fiction; doing so they offer as many comfortable spectatorial escapes, and entertaining disruptions from the audience daily routine. On the opposite, Hillcoat’s The Road brings back the harsh and discomforting proximity of a credible life experience. Arguably, the claimed display of different shades of gray match their suggestive power. At the same time, actors adapt their performance to such a distressing environment, and so bring forth even more meaning to the global filmic aesthetics. Thus, The Road depicts a default of any flicker of humanity. The final sequence, however, instead of being diegetically last, is barely penultimate. It awkwardly rewards the public with a liberating breathing, and the surviving child with some improbable escape towards a (hypothetical) recovery.