The Long Walk Is a Haunting Exploration of Good Intentions Gone Wrong

On paper, Mattie Do’s The Long Walk is a groundbreaking movie: it’s the primary movie from Laos to display theatrically within the U.S., and it’s made by the nation’s first (and apparently solely) lady filmmaker, who additionally occurs to be the one director in Laos making style movies. But even in case you didn’t know any of that, The Long Walk is actually a standout movie—it’s eerie, poetic, and completely distinctive.

Written by Christopher Larsen, The Long Walk introduces us to a never-named outdated man (Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy, whose understated efficiency carries the movie) making a meager residing scavenging scrap metallic from the jungle round his village. Right from the beginning the film makes certain we all know this rural setting isn’t what we assume it’s; for one factor, everybody has a microchip implanted of their arm that capabilities very like a wise telephone. Our man’s received an growing old mannequin, although. “Ancient technology, ancient man,” mutters the shopkeeper who begrudgingly buys his luggage of outdated wires and motorcycle elements.

There’s one other establishing level to layer into this not-so-simple story, and that’s the truth that the person can see ghosts. When the cops query him a few native lady who’s gone lacking, we determine he’s a suspect, till one among them cuts to the chase: it’s rumored that the outdated man can speak to spirits, and so they’d like his assist determining what occurred to her. He refuses, however the spirit factor is true; although The Long Walk unfurls its plot particulars with slow-burn precision, we quickly perceive that the silent younger lady (Noutnapha Soydara) who steadily seems to him is a ghost. As a boy (Por Silatsa) he discovered her close to dying together with the highway, gasping “Please don’t leave me alone here.” He didn’t, and after she handed, she caught round.

The third large aspect in The Long Walk is time journey. There are conventional flashbacks, which present us the boy residing in what we’ve come to know because the outdated man’s home together with his mom (Chanthamone Inoudome) and father (Vithaya Sombath). They’re farmers, struggling to get by in a world the place an American firm swoops in providing assist… within the type of photo voltaic panels, not the tractor they desperately want. (Along with the microchips and the supersonic jets that scream overhead, the movie is sprinkled with know-how that feels extra intrusive than the rest.) But sooner or later—apparently by his contact with the ghost lady, although it’s by no means fairly defined, and it doesn’t should be—the outdated man realizes he’s capable of slip into his previous and work together together with his youthful self. It doesn’t take lengthy earlier than he decides to make use of this newfound means to assist his mom, who suffered an sickness that brought on her agonizingly drawn-out dying. Tinkering with the previous is harmful enterprise—as anybody who’s seen Back to the Future (or any time-travel film) effectively is aware of—and The Long Walk’s tackle it’s significantly disturbing. The extra the outdated man tries to play savior to his beloved mom, the extra his actuality turns into a particularly grim, self-created nightmare.

As The Long Walk’s grisly puzzle items come collectively, it turns into clear simply how rigorously plotted its story is, to not point out how stuffed with completely thought-about particulars—just like the glass-windowed cupboard within the man’s residence that cracks within the altered previous and involves symbolize his more and more fractured current. It additionally quietly digs into emotionally advanced themes that improve the twisted journey at its heart, together with the significance of burials and dying rituals, not only for mourners left behind, however for the useless themselves. And maybe most poignantly, it examines the deep toll that loneliness and remorse can tackle an individual whose ethical compass is ticking its method towards darkness. It’s a powerful, haunting work. This often is the first of Mattie Do’s movies to achieve the U.S.—however let’s hope there are a lot of extra to come back.

The Long Walk is now in theaters and accessible on digital on demand.

Wondering the place our RSS feed went? You can decide the brand new up one right here.