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| A scene from Sanctum. |
By Ed Rampell
Almost a century ago motion picture pioneer D.W. Griffith, who helped create the cinematic art form, said, “The task I am trying to achieve is above all to make you see.” James Cameron, the auteur behind 2009’s epic Avatar, is continuing to do just that with Sanctum, the underwater cave diving extravaganza shot in mind blowingly glorious 3D and IMAX.
Set in Papua New Guinea Sanctum is the story of a hardy group of explorers who set out to discover the inner recesses of Esa’ala Cave, the planet’s least accessible cave system, which human eyes have never before beheld. Predictably, disaster strikes, and Sanctum becomes a saga about the struggle for survival, somewhat in the vein of 127 Hours crossed by the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, based on Jules Verne’s immortal novel. Sanctum also features a father-son struggle of Ivan Turgenev proportions between the hardass lead explorer and master diver, Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) and his teenage son, Josh (Rhys Wakefield). Throw into this volatile mix some damsels in distressm Victoria (Alice Parkinson) and Liz (Nicole Downes), a greedy capitalist (Ioan Gruffudd) who underwrites then undermines this mission impossible, shake, do not stir, and you have the explosive ingredients for a dramatic film. And considering Sanctum’s psychological familial dynamics, you don’t have to be a Sigmund Freud to figure out that the submerged caverns and tunnels symbolize the womb, birth channel, etc.
However, the film’s acting is mediocre (with the possible exception of Wakefield, who literally rises to the occasion), as is the so-so script by John Garvin and Andrew Wight (the latter is an actual spelunker -- Sanctum is loosely suggested by a 1988 cave expedition that went wrong). The vulgarities and brash behavior are meant to let audiences know what a group of bold souls these explorers be. Grufford’s clichéd capitalist is another one of Cameron’s greedy pigs in Titanic, Avatar, etc.
In Sanctum, once again, the indigenous people are reduced to being mere background in their own country, as the Black Papuans are mainly porters who serve the all-important whitey bwanas (it’s their story, after all), who are Australians and Americans. The sole token Native cave diver, Luko (Cramer Cain), disappears off the screen pretty quickly, too. Those islanders are expendable in their own islands.
Director Alister Grierson’s only other feature, 2006’s Kokoda, was also set in what the production notes call “New Guinea.” However, Sanctum was actually shot on location at Australia and in a studio, not in Melanesia -- another trite trope of the South Seas Cinema film genre, that includes Pacific Island shot and/or set classics such as Mutiny on the Bounty and The Hurricane. I guess if you’ve seen one island, you’ve seen them all.
But never mind all this, which is run-of-the-movie-mill for special effects-driven films, where plot, characterization, dialogue, thespianism, etc., all take second place to the real raison d’etre and star of the big picture: the Cameron/Pace Fusion 3D Camera System. Sanctum’s story is merely an excuse for this revolutionary cinematic technique and format, and for using it in fascinating, stunning settings, both exterior and interior. You absolutely must see Sanctum in IMAX – some of the exquisite cinematography is absolutely startling and jaw dropping, from those lifelike underwater bubbles gurgling upwards – seemingly surrounding viewers – to those panoramic aerial shots that put audiences in the eye-popping choppers.
Some auds complained about technical problems when they viewed Avatar, but the Sanctum private screening I attended at an AMC Burbank on an IMAX screen was flawless and nothing short of visually spectacular. This is not the first time that South Seas Cinema has been shot in a new cinematic technique – William Castle’s 1954 Drums of Tahiti was shot in 3D, so there’s was lots of spears thrown right at the camera lenses in order to make ticket buyers duck for cover. And 1958’s South Seas Adventure there was a travelogue shot in the Cinerama widescreen process. But with Sanctum, the visionary Cameron and crew have made a major addition to the South Seas Cinema genre, and more importantly to film culture. In the best D.W. Griffith tradition, they are making audiences see in new ways.
