This Land Is My Land

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome some day

Oh deep in my heart
I do believe
We shall overcome some day

I can't say that I'm a George Romero afficianado. I don't mean this in a negative way. It's just that I haven't bothered to catch up with Romero's zombie movies over the years. He's directed three previous zombie movies spanning four decades: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. In fact, he's directed quite a few other films including one about O.J. Simpson (Juice on the Loose), with its dramatically ironic title (the film was made in the 70s).

I suspect, if anything, most people haven't seen a Romero film because the subject matter, zombies, is a turn-off. For non-horror fans, it's just another horror movie. For horror fans, it doesn't offer the same visceral thrills as a Freddie or a Jason (or a Freddy vs. Jason). Romero's zombies have never been too quick. They amble along in their half-drunken stupor, and yet seem to outrace most people who would rather not share the same zipcode.

Land of the Dead succeeds because it's more than a zombie movie, as perhaps many zombie movies are. The zombies are not just zombies, but stand for the downtrodden of society, looking to overcome their untouchability.

Zombie movies always feel like their set in the present, and yet, Land really borrows a lot from science fiction films, especially, post-apocalyptic films like Mad Max. However, where Mad Max (itself a part of a cult triology), is set in a near future, where fuel is valuable, and society has degraded to survivors in a harsh world, Romero uses this zombified world as a crucible of class struggle.

Unlike the zombies of 28 Days Later, which make zombies out to be vicious animals, similar to wolves, and therefore something to be feared, Romero understands his zombies stand in for the "dead" in our society, and perhaps Shaun of the Dead also understand this. The dead are those who don't think, who go about their business, and yes, let pretty fireworks distract them.

I wish I could remember the quote of the film, where Dennis Hopper says something like "In a land where the dead are now alive, the xxx ceases to have any meaning", but what is xxx? I'm sure someone will remind me.

Fiddler's Green is a skyscraper now run by Dennis Hopper, and he's in charge of a enclave where the rich of the world can live segregated from the zombies. They drink, and wear suits, blissfully unaware of the world outside. The poor, on the other hand, must fend for themselves, and are not much above zombies, which eventually becomes the point. Where the poor depend on the rich to make a living, and desire upward mobility, the zombies too have discovered they want more.

Lead by Martin Luther zombie, they're ready to lay siege on Fiddler's Green.

To contrast again with 28 Days Later, where the survivors take a more realistic view of their situation (they must survive), Romero's zombie world is about trying to live a quality of life despite what the zombies have done. When wealth is suddenly scarce, those who have it will keep it, and try to block out the misery. This creates a "life goes on" attitude among the denizens of this world.

Since zombies don't make good actors (although here, you can tell, without words, what the zombies want), the storyline of zombie movies has to be strong enough to carry it. Thus, the plot is never an us-vs-zombies. In this case, it's as much about Cholo (played by seldom seen John Leguizamo) doing the dirty work for Hopper, in the hopes of getting his own place at the Green, and discovering that he's not the "right kind of person". He steals Dead Reckoning, a military RV used in zombie raids. Romero is nothing if not clever in realizing that giving a vehicle a name (based on ship terminology at that) gives it personality (much as Millenium Falcon is its own character).

The story is then about Riley, who like Cholo, is among the downtrodden, who goes out on zombie missions, but is ready to leave it all, and head out to Canada to live away from the city, and the zombies, doing one last favor for Kaufman (Hopper) by trying to take out Cholo, who plans his revenge on Kaufman if he isn't paid. You'd think, in a world of zombies, money doesn't make sense, but this is a film as much about class differences as anything, and money is always involved in classism.

Riley takes on two others: Charlie, who himself looks like a zombie (no one much mentions this except Charlie), but, as you discover later on, was a burn victim, and Slack, who is first seen in a cage match with two zombies, and bets-a-plenty, before Riley comes to the rescue.

It's the human details of the many characters that end up driving a good zombie movie. While zombies tend to feast on humans, they are seen like wolves. They're out there somewhere, but we have the guns, and can shoot them. They're not dangerous unless they somehow could get organized. Somehow. In the end, their purpose in life is very similar to the downtrodden. That if they ever get organized, they can kick out the wealthy.

It's funny how Land is not a particularly intense movie. You don't feel the squalor, the threat, the fear as much. And yet, it's fascinating precisely because it's not a horror flick, but a microcosm of a class society, that the ultimate response to a threat like zombies is the desire to be wealthy, and to hide from the zombies. Riley is the character we are meant to care about, and his solution is to leave everything, realizing class struggle is futile.

Give me a six-pack missile launching armored RV, and I will head to the wilderness to live the simple life. If anything, Land reminds me of the ending of Ender's Game, the science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card. The world, formerly divided into political factions, are now united under Peter Wiggin, who plans to reform society, post bugger-fight. However, a few stalwart individuals, including Ender and Val take a ship with a bunch of passengers out to the unknown, to live a new life, away from Earth. Romero doesn't present a particularly original vision, but he does elevate a zombie movie to more than a zombie movie, which is, perhaps what he's always done.

In the end, Riley sees his promised land. It's no longer a better life in the post-Kaufman society. It's a quite life in Canada (Hopper utters the lines of not negotiating with terrorists), and sees a kin in the zombies who are also seeking a life better than the ones they have known.

(There is one small touch I find interesting. Throughout the film, fireworks are sent to the sky, which distract the zombies, and yet they are referred to as sky flowers which is similar to the Japanese phrase, Hana-bi, which I believe, means fire-flowers.)