The Divide

Sure To Divide Its Audience, This Apocalyptic Nightmare Is Likely To Elicit Strong Emotions One Way Or Another
I didn't have any set expectations going into Xavier Gens' provocative survival drama "The Divide." Love it or hate it, one thing is certain: this is a movie that seems destined to polarize (or divide) its audience. Its supporters will call it a modern masterpiece. Guaranteed. Its strongest detractors will call it a nihilistic mess. Absolutely. Maybe its both--a modern messy nihilistic masterpiece. For the most part, the film was savaged by the mainstream media. On the other hand, the movie seemed to connect with audiences at key film festivals including Edinburgh, SXSW, Fant-Asia, and Toronto After Dark. So I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Make no mistake, the goal of Gens is to provoke and push buttons with his uncompromisingly unpleasant look at people pushed to extremes. And any film that can elicit strong emotions--good or bad--is a rarity in this movie world where we make homogenized formula pieces designed by committee.

"The Divide" literally...

Intense is an Understatement!
I'll start by saying I purchased this film because I respect Milo Ventimiglia's previous work and figured I'd give it a chance. I'm not usually one for post-apocalyptic films as I often find them too depressing to watch so I wasn't expecting to really care for it but this film really blew me away.

This movie is dark. Dark, intense and very powerful. It's full of things we all fear but most of all it encompasses the depravity of human beings when put in a situation such as what befalls the characters in this film. The cover of the movie itself should be enough to tell you that this isn't going to be a happy film. Blood, violence and even a considerable amount of rape are all in this film and it's all done so very intensely! This film shows you the horrifying and frightening things people will do to each other in order to survive, when crammed into the basement of an apartment building. This movie didn't hold back. The characters didn't hold back.

Milo...

Xavier Gens' "Lifeboat"-Like Thriller Needs Storytelling Skills
Directed by Xavier Gens (who made his name with a horror "Frontier(s)" back in 2007) "The Divide" attempts to do two things at once. The film starts out as a post-apocalyptic thriller about a small group of survivors after a nuke attack on New York City; it also intends to be a psychological drama of these "lucky" people under the claustrophobic situations. The premise may remind us of Vincenzo Natali's psychological thriller "Cube," in which scientific elements serve as a set-up for the story about the characters trapped in a small space.

The idea is good, if not very original. Unfortunately, the filmmakers failed to develop it into a compelling narrative. "The Divide" tries to be a grim, uncompromising thriller by repeatedly using graphic violence. Though I do not disagree with the idea itself, I still find it annoying and pointless when violence is the only thing the director seems interested in.

What is strange about "The Divide" is that no one in the film...

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