(Image: Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” via Pink Tentacle)
The latest news from Wall Street seems to indicate that a complete financial meltdown is only a few weeks away. Before you violently horde every morsel of food from your local supermarket or begin a hostile take-over of your corner gas station, there are several movies you should watch in order to prepare for life after the downfall of Western civilization. There have been plenty of films in which the world we know is nothing but a burned out shell of its former glory. Nuclear holocaust and virulent plagues are common Earth-clearing disasters, but there’s no reason to think that a global economic collapse would be any less destructive. Let’s not forget that one of history’s most common causes for war is a desperate grab for resources during tough times. So without further ado, seven lessons from the movies, essential for surviving our impending doom:
1. Hoard gasoline!
Plenty of people are already getting a jump on this one, apparently upping demand to the point where falling oil prices are not translating to the pump. If you think waiting 15 minutes in line to buy gas at $4.50 a gallon is bad, watch The Road Warrior again. From the opening sequence where Mel Gibson gingerly harvests every precious ounce of fuel from an abandoned vehicle to the final deadly battle over a tanker truck, it’s clear that in a post-apocalyptic world, gas is gold. Sure, we’re working on becoming less dependent on the stuff, but what good is a Chevy Volt going to do you if the power grid is in shambles?
2. Learn a trade that’s useful regardless of available technology!
Farmers, builders, doctors, these people will always be useful, even if your society’s currency consists only of the teeth of your enemies. If your skill set is of a less practical variety, don’t worry, people will still need entertainment. One good model is Kevin Costner’s character in The Postman. Before he takes on the titular role as a letter carrier, he makes his way from town to town as a traveling minstrel. The Pony Express-style mailman gig he eventually gets is a good job as well, but it tends to be quite dangerous.
3. Do not take a job at a butcher shop!
I can’t stress this one enough. History has unfortunately proven that when times get extremely tough, people will eat one another, it’s a natural consequence of human depravity. If you see an ad in the paper for a general labor position with a high turn-over rate at a deli specializing in fresh meat, don’t be foolish like Dominique Pinon’s character in Delicatessen. The dark comedy, from Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, tells the story of a former circus performer who lands a job at a butcher shop with a less than wholesome supply chain. If McDonalds is still open when New York’s financial district is nothing more than a smoking ruin used to house gladiatorial death matches, be suspicious.
4. If you are fertile, be careful with your precious seed!
The human race is notoriously tenacious, so don’t think the collapse of society means the end of our fair race––we’ll survive, somehow. But when things get really crazy, potential candidates for the new Adam and Eve need to be on guard. Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is an excellent example of how post-apocalyptic citizens can go baby crazy. There are also a number of examples of post-apocalyptic fiction where a fertile man is a highly sought-after commodity in a female-dominated dystopia. A Boy and His Dog and Hell Comes to Frogtown both feature walking sperm banks charged with saving womankind (played by Don Johnson and Rowdy Roddy Piper, respectively). Also, SciFi Wire reported yesterday that Eagle Eye director D.J. Caruso’s next film will be an adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan’s amazing graphic novel Y the Last Man. The film will (presumably) star Shia LaBeouf as Vic, who is, you guessed it, the last human male on earth.
5. For God’s sake, save the library!
This tip doesn’t concern personal survivability so much as a general service to humanity. When I was in school I was forced to watch the 1960 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine for some reason. I loved it. But I was also terrified by its vision of the future. My most vivid memory of the film is when our hero finds that future generations have not maintained the library, letting the entire record of human history literally turn to dust. It’s a good thing that people like Wired magazine founding editor Kevin Kelly are doing cool things like The Long Now Project, because digital storage of information is almost comically transient. Also, if you don’t think things this important can really be lost, watch the 2007 Iraq war documentary No End in Sight. The part about the looting of the National Museum and the burning of the Iraqi National Archives made me cry.
6. If you live in a temperate climate, head South!
This one is simple enough, and it’s the premise of Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road, the film adaptation of which will be in theaters this November, starring Viggo Mortensen. The story dispenses with the typical global catastrophe story line common to most post-apocalyptic tales, and focused instead on a man and his son attempting to avoid danger as they head South for the winter through a blighted landscape. This is the film I most look forward to this fall; it takes the genre in a very serious direction, so don’t expect any Mad Max-like car chases. For our purposes here, The Road really teaches two valuable lessons: one, even something seemingly simple, like heading South, can be potentially deadly; and two, it gives some great tips on scavenging through buildings that have already been picked over by looters.
7. If given the opportunity to travel back in time to thwart the collapse of civilization, do not fall in love!
If you are the one chosen to save humanity via time travel, it’s important to avoid the retro sex appeal possessed by the single people of the past. This is no time for love! Two films illustrate this, one is a remake of the other. The 1962 French short film La Jetée uses a montage of stunningly beautiful black and white stills to tell the story of a time traveler distracted from his mission by romance. It’s one part French New Wave, one part killer sci-fi, and an absolute classic. Terry Gilliam expanded the story with his 1995 adaptation, 12 Monkeys. If you’ve seen either film you know that the missions to the past are not exactly successful, although it’s debatable whether or not romance is to blame. Nevertheless, if the future of humanity is in your hands, stay on task!
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