Diplomats and environmentalists are fighting to save the world at climate talks in Bonn, but cinema has already had a head start. In the movie world, mankind has long been fighting for survival in a destroyed world.
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Disaster films: Fiction, or already reality?
Apocalyptic films have fascinated moviegoers for decades. Man-made or the wrath of nature — when they strike, nothing is safe. DW takes a look at some unforgettable movie catastrophes.
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Crazy climate: 'Geostorm' (2017)
More than 2 million people die in a heat wave, global capitals are under water and the weather is completely unpredictable. In this new movie, a massive network of satellites now controls the weather, and for a while it works. But then something goes wrong, and the orbiting geoengineering station begins creating ice ages and cataclysmic disasters. A global megastorm threatens to destroy humanity.
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Tsunami: 'The Impossible' (2012)
This film is based on a real catastrophe, the December 2004 tsunami that killed more than a quarter of a million people in Southeast Asia. A family is torn apart by the massive wave and reunites in the midst of death and destruction. For many critics, the film, which starred Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, was nothing more than a melodramatic tearjerker, which ignored the real tragedy and pain.
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Flood and hurricane: 'Beasts of the Southern Wild' (2012)
This fable treated disaster quite differently. Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) survives a storm surge in the swamps of Louisiana thanks to her unshakable imagination: "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece... the entire universe will get busted." On a small budget, director Benh Zeitlin made an impressive debut.
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Solar flares: 'Hell' (2011)
In this German movie, people are struggling to survive in a bright, dusty, withered world. In "Hell," the sun has become the enemy of humanity, with its intense heat, deadly radiation and solar storms. The world's remaining humans do unimaginable things to each other to survive.
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Solar flares (again): '2012' (2009)
Director Roland Emmerich isn't known for low-budget indie movies. His blockbusters use every chance to maximize explosions and destruction. In this mother of all climate disaster films, six billion people freeze, drown or burn to death, victims of Mother Nature's wrath. The gigantic destructive orgy is as absurd as it is fascinating. Once again, the sun was to blame.
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Global warming: 'The Day After Tomorrow' (2004)
"2012" wasn't Emmerich's first crack at the natural disaster genre. In "The Day After Tomorrow," paleoclimatologist Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) warns of an impeding climatic shift that will trigger a new global ice age. And, with plenty of CGI, that's exactly what happens. First, huge storms devastate the world, followed by destructive tidal waves and finally, the deep freeze.
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Tornado: 'Twister' (1996)
Meteorologists trying to unravel the mystery of tornadoes, in order to develop a better warning system, go on the hunt for the titular "twisters." Homes, boats, trucks and cows go flying, as researchers on the brink of divorce, played by Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton, rekindle their relationship. In the end, they find themselves in the path of a huge F5 tornado. Who will survive?
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Rising sea levels: 'Waterworld' (1995)
The polar ice caps have melted, flooding the continents. Only a few people still live on artificial atolls or boats, including Mariner (Kevin Costner). Of course, there are also the bad guys, who kidnap a child with a tattoo on her back which promises to lead the way to the only remaining island on Earth, Dryland. Fun fact: A set was destroyed by a severe storm during the filming of the movie.
In 2022, New York is a jumble of wrecked cars, garbage, smog and homeless people. Meadows, flowers and birds are a thing of the past. People are fed with food substitutes, the most popular being Soylent Green, supposedly made from plankton. A detective (Charlton Heston) discovers, however, that the little biscuits are actually made of something much more disturbing: "Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!"
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The world has seen a series of catastrophic natural disasters in recent years: tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and off the coast of Japan, hurricanes and storm surges in the US, severe drought in Africa and tornadoes and torrential rains in Central Europe, to name just a few.
Added to that list are the slower moving, yet equally threatening menaces like melting polar ice caps, a degraded ozone layer, rising sea levels and growing deserts.
These scenarios and their ghastly consequences have also been a regular feature on movie screens, with viewers awestruck in the face of destruction and apocalypse — safe in their seats.
Disaster films have exerted a fascination for audiences since the early days of film, reflecting the anxieties of the age. Their message is simple: Anything can happen. But not here, and not now.
King Kong faced off against Godzilla in 1962Image: picture alliance/dpa/Everett Collection
Monsters and the atomic threat
In the early days, cinemagoers trembled as the earth shook in 1936 disaster flick "San Francisco." In the 1950s, huge monsters, flying saucers and extraterrestrials swarmed the silver screen, as the films of director Jack Arnold spread fear and terror.
Of course, it was all science fiction. But during the height of the Cold War, as the world's nuclear powers fought for supremacy, humanity was made aware of the concrete threat. The danger of nuclear catastrophe was dramatized for the first time in Stanley Kramer's 1959 film "On the Beach," starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire as survivors of a global nuclear war.
The 'Airport' disaster series began in 1970 with Dean Martin (center) and Jacqueline BissetImage: picture alliance / United Archives/IFTN
The 1970s was THE decade of disaster movies. Man-made disasters were everywhere: a soaring skyscraper burned in "The Towering Inferno" (1974), airplanes collided in "Airport 1975" (1974) and luxury ocean liners capsized in "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) or were threatened by bombs in "Juggernaut" (1974).
Mother Nature was just as relentless, resulting in several entertaining catastrophic flicks. Dams broke ("Flood!" 1976), the earth shook over and over and the animal kingdom retaliated for environmental pollution: In "Frogs" (1972), killer amphibians, alligators, tarantulas and other animals attacked partiers on an island estate. Other films featured killer whales, giant squid and great white sharks ("Jaws" still terrifies to this day), and swarms of killer bees spreading death and destruction.
A victim in 'Frogs,' driven into the swamp by raging animalsImage: picture-alliance/United Archives/IFTN
Nature takes revenge
Some of the film catastrophes came crashing down from outer space — "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," to name a pair from 1998 — but more often than not, they were the result of man's insensitivity toward nature, which included mutations caused by chemical experiments or atomic radiation.
Other disasters seemingly emerged out of nowhere, with no regard for the climate deadlines set by scientists. The Earth's axis suddenly shifts, the polar ice caps melt overnight, volcanoes burst from the ground, seemingly from nowhere: Things happen much faster on the silver screen.
These films appeal to our desire for sensationalism, a universal attraction. But without a story, even the most violent explosion or most terrifying creature would become boring after five minutes.
Bruce Willis (second from left) and his team on the way to rescue the world in 'Armageddon'Image: picture-alliance/United Archives/IFTN
A film needs a plot — though in the case of disaster movies, it's often the same unimaginative storyline. Usually, it's the lone hero who finds it within himself to save a small group of people, or even the entire world, with or without the help of a few buddies who tag along for the ride.
And let's not forget the stereotypes: the worried scientist, believed by no one until it's too late; the self-righteous politician — usually, the US president; the unscrupulous businessman who wants to profit from the disaster; the rough-and-ready ex-soldier who becomes a hero; and a handful of brave women and children.
The one thing that nearly all disaster films have in common: the small group of survivors that make it to the end of the film and live to make a fresh start, leaving the ending open.
