“It’s interesting what becomes valuable to us when almost everything is
taken away,” one character muses in The Ultimate Warrior (1975), a violent action film that heavily
forecasts The Road Warrior (1982), Cyborg (1989) and other films of the
post-apocalyptic sub-genre.
In this case, it is Yul Brynner rather
than Mel Gibson or Jean Claude Van Damme who plays a warrior of the wasteland,
one who must protect the remnants -- and indeed the future -- of human
civilization.
As in the case of the other films
name-checked above, there’s a powerful Western vibe or overlay to The
Ultimate Warrior. This is the
story of a Clint Eastwood-like stranger who arrives at the City, and either saves
it from injustice, or induces it to experience a rebirth.
It’s fascinating how the
hero/stranger in such tales is always an outsider to the community or village at
large, isn’t it?
The myth of the hero on a white
horse arriving to clean up town -- and then leave it for the better -- is a
deeply entrenched one in American culture. So much so that it still exists
today in political campaigns. Everyone
(on both sides of the aisle) wants to be cast as the heroic outsider riding
into corrupt/failed Washington D.C. to clean it up.
The
Ultimate Warrior -- directed by Robert Clouse -- certainly
puts an interesting spin on this old archetype, recognizing in this case that
the City will fall, but that mankind can survive nonetheless. The hero’s
responsibility is not, then, to the City, in this case, but to the very future
of the species. The film uses as symbols
for that future both plant seeds, and a human fetus, carried in the abdomen of quite
possibly the world’s last mother.
The future world of 2012 (!) as
depicted viscerally in The Ultimate Warrior is one of
starvation and desperation, scarcity and shortages. There is no gasoline, no
medicine, and no hope. The Baron’s (Max Von Sydow) community suffers from a
plague of “fatalism,” according to
the film’s dialogue.
In terms of historical context, it
is easy to see why the apocalypse takes this form. The film arises, like No
Blade of Grass (1970) or Z.P.G. (Zero Population Growth)
(1972) from an age in which resource shortages, pollution and over-population
looked like the trifecta of impending doomsdays, the three-headed bullet that had
our name on it. Similarly, the country was still careening from the
morale-sucking failures of the Vietnam War and fall-out from the Watergate
Scandal. “Fatalism,” in those days, wasn’t
the purview of only sci-fi films.
The film’s great virtue is its
sense that mankind will endure. That fatalism can be outlived. The final scene
-- set outside the confines of the de-humanized City -- promises a re-birth of
hope, and an end to the fatalism that reduced man to selfish barbarian.
But of course, such catharsis can
only arise after a particular brutal confrontation between Brynner and William
Smith -- local warlord -- in a subway car.
That’s as it should be, however, since
this is an action film. The Ultimate Warrior is vastly
underrated in terms of its action, story, and value to the genre, but even
worse, it often gets no credit for imagining the savagery of the
post-apocalyptic world that filmmakers and critics would later associate with
the Mad
Max saga. It’s a film that deserves
a second look, even forty years later.
In the year 2012, the civilized
world has collapsed into anarchy due to famine. The Baron (Max Von Sydow) --
the leader of small community of survivors in New York City --realizes that his
people will not survive long when faced with vile scavengers like the evil
Carrot (William Smith) and his men.
Thus, the Baron recruits a soldier
of fortune named Carson (Yul Brynner) to act as guardian to his people.
But the Baron has another motive
for bringing the warrior into the fold. He recognizes the inevitable; that there
is no future in city life. Specifically,
The Baron wants to send his pregnant daughter, Melinda (Joanna Miles) to safety
in North Carolina along with a batch of specially-engineered seeds that can
grow despite the famine, and re-start the cycle of life.
The Baron tasks Carson with the
care of his daughter and the seeds during the journey, but Carrot does
everything in his power to stop the mission.
The Baron’s people are
none-too-happy either, to learn that their leader has determined that their lives
and futures are expendable.
The
Ultimate Warrior’s
depiction of its dark future world remains quite powerful. The city looks like
a vast junkyard, and the Baron’s community lives on a city block barricaded on
all sides. The entrance is accessible only through a parked-bus, and inside the
community we see small gardens, wind mills (for energy production), and a
community pantry running very low on provisions.
Impressively, The Ultimate Warrior
considers that in a new world order like this one, new laws will be necessary,
and the film reveals how even the best society’s -- like the one established by
the Baron -- must operate on draconian law.
There’s nothing to waste, nothing to squander, and yet the laws are so
harsh that some essential sense of humanity is sacrificed.
For example, one citizen in the compound
is accused of stealing a tomato, and forced to endure cruel justice. The Baron declares “Give him to the street people” and the offender is cast-out into
the urban jungle. The Baron pays for his
own trespasses as well. After sending
away his daughter, Carson, and the seeds, he stays behind, and his own people
beat him to death for selling them out. This sequence seems indicative of the
proverb that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. The Baron showed no mercy to offenders, and
is, finally, shown no mercy, himself.
A real sense of human savagery
permeates The Ultimate Warrior, and one sequence involves the desperate mother
and father of a small baby venturing out into the “wilderness” of New York to
acquire powdered milk for their infant.
A less frank, less honest film would have had them survive; would have had
the hero rescue them. In this case,
Carson is too late to help the family, and barely escapes with his own life.
The fate of the baby is pretty grim too, an indication that the City is running
out of tomorrows.
The
Ultimate Warriors’
last act leaves behind the terror of the City, as Melinda and Carson (carrying
the seeds), flee the metropolis through the subway system, Carrot and his men
in pursuit. In this section of the film,
the tension is especially high because The Baron -- Melinda’s father -- has
actually given explicit instructions that Carson is to consider the fate of the
seeds ahead of the fate of Melinda and her child.
That’s how desperate things have
gotten for the human race. Family ties
are now less important that a life-giving crop. When Melinda goes into labor,
with Carrot’s men in pursuit, the film reaches its pinnacle of anxiety, since
one wonders what decision Carson will ultimately make. It’s a tough choice, and
one I don’t envy.
Carson chooses the morality of the
old world, interestingly, and stays with the pregnant mother. He thus risks everything, but maintains his
soul. It’s a fair trade, given the film’s
outcome. As the titular “ultimate
warrior,” Carson dispatches Carrot and his men with great aplomb, violence and
blood-shed. The final set-piece in the subway (wherein Carson must chop off his
own hand to kill Carrot) is gruesome in the extreme, but the final shots of
Carson, Melinda and her baby reaching the picturesque beaches of North Carolina
provide the film its final punctuation, a visual and emotional catharsis that
makes the whole journey worthwhile.
For my money, the cutthroat No
Blade of Grass still takes the cake as the bluntest, nastiest slice of
post-apocalyptic life in the 1970s cinema, but The Ultimate Warrior absolutely
points the way to the genre’s future. The film re-purposes old Western myths
and tropes but doesn’t candy-coat the grim realities its characters encounter. While it is not, perhaps the “ultimate”
post-apocalyptic film, The Ultimate Warrior is nonetheless a
really fine piece of work, and the grandfather, perhaps, of The
Road Warrior.
John excellent review and a reason to purchase a copy of your awesome book
ReplyDeleteScience Fiction and Fantasy Films of the 1970s. It makes me want to go and watch this film again after all these years. Yul Brynner still powerful as in his prior performance in Westworld.
SGB
I love this film and pine for a real DVD/Blu Ray release one day. What a cast, Yul Brynner, Big Bill Smith, Max Vob Sydow, etc. Also scores big point from me as Brynner is looking to make it to my home state in the end.
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