Cargo is an Australian film released in June 2018. It is the remake of the eponymous short film by the same two directors, Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke, dating from 2013. The post-apocalyptic thriller is a subgenre of science fiction that depicts life after a catastrophe that has destroyed civilization. Yet this thriller is different from what we are used to seeing.
A basic story
The story joins the zombie movies: an infected person and a person to be saved.Father Andy, played by Martin Freeman (Sherlock), has only 48 hours before he fully transforms. He knows he only has two days left to find someone he trusts to take care of his baby Rosie. On this point, nothing really different as a plot in a film of the genre. The beginning of the film contains no dialogue. Only the silence and transitions between different shots, the desert with a child running and the couple in the boat make us want to know more about the situation. It is only when dialogue takes place that we understand that there is a problem.
Zombiesque but different
What makes the difference is the atmosphere of the film, both peaceful and full of tension. The interplay between landscape palette and sound makes us enter the feature film quite quickly. Far from scenarios where action, violence and blood are predominant, the work rarely offers this type of scene. The directors wanted to focus on the psychological aspect of the role of the father who wants at all costs to find a new family for his daughter. Cargo confronts two ethnic groups and shows the love of a father to his daughter and a daughter to her father, who are trying to survive. This aspect only subtly succeeds in touching the viewer. For good reason, the acting is wobbly despite a touching Martin Freeman. The lack of depth of the characters does not let us get attached to their fate. The situations follow one another without surprise or great emotion, which reinforces the lack of impact of the film. The script is quite simple but little worked and the lack of credibility of the characters contribute to give this film the appearance of wandering aimlessly.
Cargo is an unconvincing thriller but very different from what we are used to seeing in the post-apocalyptic genre. A more pronounced work on the depth of the characters would surely have made this work more convincing.
Trailer of Cargo
