Sound is used in the film to create meaning and to represent the horror of the tsunami. The aural experience is evidently a real focus for the film-makers from the start when the darkened auditorium is filled with the sound of water reminding the audience that the sound of the tsunami must have been terrifying. The volume is uncomfortably loud and this is matched moments later by the sound of an areoplane landing. Both scenes forebode danger and suggets that sound is an integral part of recreating the horror of the experience. This element could have been overlooked but the director foregrounds the sound and suggests it is important in representing the tsunami and how people remember the event. In being faithful to the sounds of the event the director is trying to link us with the senses of the survivors and to represent their experience. It helps to offer a point of view as it is often the auditory perspective of the person in the narrative. When the Naomi Watts character is knocked out underwater she loses her hearing and this is reflected in the audio. The family film their Christmas and the tinny sound of the home video is re-created to re-inforce the homely feel.
The mise-en-scene in this film is suggestive of a horror film and the real life events of the tsunami become more horrific than fiction. The make-up used is reminiscent of body horrors from the leg wound the boy sees on his mother's leg to the zombie like make-up used on Naomi Watts as her character gradually degenerates. THe director unflinchingly represents the horror of the weaknes of the human body to withstand such physical punishment and its aftermath as the body struggles to recover from the trauma. THe link with the emotional and psychological fallout of such an event is also viscerally represented. The filmmakers could easily have got this wrong or opened themselves up to mis-representing the event. However, they do not flinch and it is brave film-making to attempt to represent such a traumatic event.
A
criticism voiced in comments and reviews of the film is that it shows a Western experience of the tsunami. The original idea comes from an account written by a Spanish Family. However, the family are wealthy Scots- English who live in Japan. One comment suggested, '
Why are there no Thai people in the film apart from small parts? At least the farangs (westerners) who survived got to go home. Who is telling the Thai stories?'
The answer would be that in order to appeal to a wide audience the choice would have been made to film in English with recognisable stars in MacGregor and Watts. The challenge was to raise the capital to use non-CGI effects which would require ambitious special effects and camera techniques. The stunning and anbitious re-presentation of the tsunami hitting is the selling point of the film and to provide a justified representation of this event the financial outlay in making the film needed to be about £30 million. The only way to raise this capital would be to assure backers and studios that audiences would apy to see this film. The stars would attract an audience as woudl the buzz around marketing the incredible special effects and the ambitious film-making project of recreating the effect of a tsunami.
