The Quiet Earth

Wednesday 25 March at 7.30pm

Geoff Murphy | New Zealand| 1985 | 91 mins | M adult themes

The Quiet Earth is a post-apocalyptic science fiction film focusing on three survivors of a cataclysmic disaster.

“For much of the duration of Geoff Murphy’s The Quiet Earth, middle-aged Zac Hobson (Bruno Lawrence) believes himself to be the last living person on Earth—but Zac was already a loner, even before the so-called ‘Effect’ that put him in this post-apocalyptic state of extreme solitude… The film opens with an image of the Sun, its shape refracted and enlarged by the horizon, rising spectacularly over the ocean, as seagulls fly about noisily. At precisely 6:12am, their cawing stops, and Zac, lying supine and naked in a motel bed, is shocked into wakefulness. Dressing and leaving, he quickly discovers that he is in a world from which every living thing appears simply to have vanished, leaving no trace beyond boiling kettles, running taps and abandoned, sometimes crashed, vehicles. As Zac—shown as a small figure in wide shot—wanders through the eerily empty streets of Hamilton, it is as though the rapture has taken place, and he alone has been left behind… Loosely based on a 1981 sci-fi novel of the same name by Craig Harrison, Murphy’s film traces Zac’s response to his isolation–his gradual realisation that normal social rules no longer apply in a world for one, as well as his temporary descent into solipsism and suicidal thoughts, megalomania and madness.” – Anton Bitel, Little White Lies