A Quiet Place – Day 1 review movies in Michael Sarnoski con Lupita Nyong’o, Joseph Quinn, Alex Wolff e Djimon Hounsou
by Lorenzo Scipioni
More ambitious, more spectacular, more expensive, but no less authorial.
The creation of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods passes through the hands of John Krasinski to those of Michael Sarnoski (Pig – Rob’s Plan) who writes as well as directs this third chapter which is a prequel/spin-off of the saga, here in his second attempt as director of a feature film.
Despite the considerably larger setting (we are in the Big Apple), the catastrophic tones, the number of extras and the massive presence of monsters, Michael Sarnoski transports the story into a more intimate dimension, deciding to focus on two single characters for the vast majority of the duration of the story, played respectively by one Lupita Nyong’o – which as usual pierces the screen – and gives a convincing performance Joseph Quinn.
While the destruction rages, what perhaps is a missed opportunity of the film emerges: we are not given to know how the protagonists manage to discover what the MacGuffin of the entire saga; on the contrary, they seem to naturally realize that silence is the only way to avoid being detected by monsters.
In addition to this, the idea of an early cinema, essentially silent, is partly betrayed by a series of, albeit inevitable, compromises: without being able to use sign language, the film is far too verbose, and the characters often recur to various tricks such as speaking in a whisper, using tickets or the perhaps overused speaking while the rain flows, although they are peculiar in terms of audiovisual, gimmicks such as waiting for a flash of lightning to cover a noise with the respective thunder.
However, it is very interesting to note how in this context, Sarnoski inserts a terminally ill patient as the protagonist and how this ends up becoming a metaphor for the post-apocalyptic genre: in a world about to end, for a character who in turn has a short-term expiry date, living is no longer a option, but surviving long enough until a goal is achieved becomes the only reason to move forward.
While everything seems to lose its meaning, eating a slice of pizza, taking care of a cat, listening to a song for the last time become goals as important as saving a person’s life.
However, the real strength of A Quiet Place – Day 1which elevates it to the same level as its predecessors if not above them, is without a doubt the staging. The action scenes are breathtaking and despite the huge amount of monsters, the director does not get carried away and manages to package numerous sequences with a high level of tension without having to show more than necessary and, with a massive use of smoke, fire or water, he manages to make even a gigantic deserted metropolis suffocating.
Directed by Sarnoski contrasts a soul of horror thriller nature with a much more composed hand with which to direct the most dramatic scenes. In this sense it is also important to underline how the eye of the narrator is careful to stage an auditory concept such as silence, as when, in one of the most powerful shots of the film, a hand touches the keys of a piano that cannot be played.
