Science is built around certainties, produced after conscientious, rigorous and verifiable investigations. However, anyone specialized in the field will tell you about the danger of blindly trusting results without review, in trying to be categorical instead of questioning until a more or less firm conclusion can be reached. That is why scientific processes that are really worth taking time.
These are aspects that collide directly with belief and faith, which usually fall into iron dogmatism and without questioning. However, there are aspects in which both concepts can coexist and even feed off each other, such as the determination to find an answer even if the path is confusing and uncertain. Believing that there is a solution even if everything points to fatalism. George Miller reflects on these things in one of his most unique films, ‘the oil of life‘.
family nightmare
It is difficult to fit a film like this, available on Filmin, into Miller’s career. It is true that his filmography is already very bizarrebut in the end points of connection can be found between his cannonades of unleashed action (the saga of ‘Mad Max’), his children’s films (‘Babe’ and ‘Happy Feet’) and his fantasy films (‘The Eastwick Witches‘ and his recent ‘Three thousand years waiting for you’). A melodrama based on real events, with a story that could be from an “afternoon movie”, does not fit much there a priori.
The film follows the Odones, a well-off family with philanthropic ambitions who for years have carried out various social work in Africa. They have a son, Lorenzo (Zack O’Malley Greenburg), who they raise in those positive values, being as human as intellectually curious. But on their return to the United States they begin to see a series of worrying symptoms that do not seem to have a simple explanation.
In a short time he goes from carrying out a normal life to losing motor functions, to falling, to having weakness in his limbs to the point of not being able to walk normally, to losing visibility, even to being speechless. He suffers from a rare neurological disease that weakens the myelin sheaths of his neurons and damages his nervous system. The prognosis is horriblewith very little prospect of life and intense care without the doctors having too many clues to throw at.
‘The oil of life’: extravagant empathy
The parents, played by Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon, will not only devote themselves to caring for their son. They will try to support the medical teams by doing intensive research, trying to understand what is causing your deterioration and trying evidence-based methods that can save you. Your determination will turn to almost blind belief that they can cure youeven clashing with other doctors and other organizations dedicated to this rare disease.
However, Miller finds a way to show how his devotion to the scientific process is almost worthy of religious fervour, with its negative aspects but also paying off when his fervent passion manages to marry research. and she tells without falling for cheap tricks of the disease dramashowing details that evidence his past as a doctor before dedicating himself to the cinema.
The director pulls empathy to draw all the characters (including the doctors who are in a certain part the villains) and manages to leave a sense of urgency in his rhythm and in how these characters dialogue, which propels the story. Until leaves impressive visual details and house markwith some nightmare scene worthy of the hallucinations of ‘Mad Max’ or some where he emphasizes the tragedy to the point that he seems to be designing classic sculptures or romantic paintings.
Eccentric details, but well used, that make the film transcend the image of cheap melodramon that you can imagine from reading the premise. This exultant narrative ability makes us, unequivocally, before a film by George Miller.
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