You play the part, as Tim Kaiser of The Tent has said, and that’s about all one can do. It’s obvious as of now that the pandemic has affected pretty much everyone in some way as it’s become a global problem that everyone has to deal with in some manner. But the entertainment business is still going, even if it’s not quite as strong as it was only months ago, and The Tent is a look at the world in a different light but with the same kind of implications as a post-apocalyptic feel has come over the landscape and the lead actor of the movie simply wants to be left alone in his place on the edge of the wilderness. In a big way it’s an isolation movie it sounds like, but when another survivor comes calling it’s bound to shift the dynamic in a way that a lot of people will understand. Some folks might need it explained to them, but it’s simple enough since a person left on their own for so long grows used to their own company, hearing their own thoughts inside their head, and the silence around them on a constant basis. Obviously there are plenty of people that believe they couldn’t do this, that it would drive them mad and possibly lead them down a very dark path and perhaps even to suicide. But the human mind is capable of adapting in ways that we don’t realize until we’re pushed to that particular edge, and then forced over.
While things in the real world haven’t hit the same manic level that The Tent shows, it’s not such a far-flung image any longer since many people are at odds with one another on how to proceed and where the world will be when this decade really gets rolling. As of now, the 20s aren’t treating a lot of people that well, and those that are surviving are either too blind to see what might come one day, or they’re willfully ignorant that such a time could come when survival is all that counts. That’s pretty bleak when you think about it considering that the paranoia stirred up by our own crisis is a lot more noise than an actual threat, but when a person realizes that the noise could become the threat then they might begin to realize that sometimes survival is a matter of simply staying apart from the madness instead of embracing it. The ideals that would go into a movie such as The Tent are vast in number but they would eventually be pared down to that one inimitable truth, that survival is the one and the only thing that many organisms will think about when life has left them nothing else.
Put in that perspective it sounds a bit dire and possibly a little fatalistic, but if anyone’s been watching the news as of late the reality that we see just out our window, so to speak, is that our world doesn’t run the same way that it used to, and it hasn’t for some time. The Tent is, unfortunately, something that might be seen as more realistic than many movies since the utter hopelessness that the crisis in the movie brings along is the same feeling that many people are talking about these days. This is despite the fact that when one looks at it, what’s been lost (no disrespect to anyone), the world hasn’t seen even a hint of the devastation that the world has to take on in the movies. Any epidemic or pandemic movie that’s ever come along makes what we’re going through at the moment in this world pale by comparison, as The Tent is even worse than the current pandemic given that the need to fully isolate and question the presence of any other survivors. The fact that it’s currently on the market during a pandemic is a huge coincidence since not only do people love movies such as this that show an utter lack of hope and overwhelming despair, but the fact is that the movie was made before the pandemic hit, and as a result it became kind of a surreal occurrence that people are no doubt going to be pointing fingers at from time to time.
To be fair the movie does look like it’s worth a watch and it could be something that’s suspenseful enough to capture the attention of many people if they give it a chance. As far as the movie being released during the pandemic goes, it’s definitely strange timing and there’s no doubt that more people will point this out as time goes along. But in the long run, it’s no stranger than other movies that have come out right before major events that made them feel like less of a coincidence.
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