The Second Coming (1995 short)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Film: B

 

 

When Volker Schlondorff’s feature film version (from Harold Pinter’s screenplay adaptation) of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale came out in 1990, many felt it missed the mark in capturing a future world where the Religious Right takes over the United States and creates a slave-class of baby-bearing women for the new “army of God” did not go far enough on many levels.  Despite a few good moments, it became bogged-down in distraction.  Jack Walsh’s short film The Second Coming (1995) is more successful at only 54 minutes, though the focus this time is on Religious Right terrorists taking over a nuclear power plant and “forcing” the President to declare martial law, then dissolve Congress, et al.

 

Despite a much lower budget and an unknown cast, it is one of the smartest and most effective films of its kind in a long time.  Though the Science Fiction elements are maybe too limited for their own good beyond budgetary consideration, the dark vision of the future here is articulate, intelligent, believable, and ahead of its time.  It is more relevant nearly a decade later than when it first appeared.  Its idea about the 2000 U.S. President is particularly haunting.

 

Two of the targets of the hate crowd are a young Gay and young Jewish man, both of whom eventually get together as part of a resistance and even get involved.  There is no sex in the film to speak of.  The narrative of the takeover and resistance are intercut with stock and abstract footage telling the story of the way the country becomes disemboweled by the scourge of the extremists.  It is so smart and well laid-out that Right Wing voices in the media have ignored it, because their typical formula responses cannot simply shoot it down.  This is a remarkable piece of

filmmaking whose DVD release could not be better timed.

 

The full frame black and white images are from the current kind of monochrome stocks that lack silver, so to some extent, it is not true black and white.  Though the use of stills is limited, it does remind one at times of Chris Marker’s La Jette (1965), the all-stills short that inspired Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys the same year as The Second Coming.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is monophonic, but the soundtrack is not as simple.  The use of sound tricks and manipulation ads dimension to the sound design and the narrative, which gets into the territory of George Lucas’ original 1971 gem THX 1138, currently being “updated” for a new DVD release.

 

The only extra is the 15-minutes-long video piece Dear Rock, Walsh’s look at homophobia, AIDS and hate with the death and exploitation of the late actor Rock Hudson as the focal point.  It makes for a great companion to the much longer Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and it well thought out.  The editing and choices of stock footage are interesting and synthesize well.  The sound is just a narrative voice-over, while we see footage composed mostly of stills and videotaped materials.

 

The bonus short has no relation to the main short, but Walsh is a wise, honest filmmaker who is a rare voice from the period of the Gay New Wave with anything to say.  The Second Coming is a must-see for serious filmmakers who agree that we are not seeing enough films that takes chances, have something to say, and where the filmmaker actually accomplishes what is intended.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo