Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 3/10

Cast: Genesis Rodriguez, Vincent Piazza, Mavis Simpson-Ernst.

There is no such thing as an unimportant human story, just uninterested people who refuse to delve out of their comfort zone and place themselves into the shoes, the experiences of another person.

This of course is natural, it is human, nobody is capable of accepting all with blind faith in the outcome, but it doesn’t mean that the story, if told well, cannot be placed into the world as a piece of art, or as enlightenment, an instruction to survive in certain circumstances, how to react with grace when the odds are against you. Conversely, should the story be presented without charm, feeling or the sense of credibility, even in the truest of accounts of human endeavour, then there is little to be gained from the exchange between those on one side of the camera and the ones watching from the comfort of their own home.

Being trapped under or within snow and ice is a fear that many of us thankfully will never have to be concerned about, we may be cut off for a while when the unexpected storm hits, but for the most part we are safe, we turn a blind eye to the rage outside and watch television as winter takes hold.

There are two ways though to present such an outcome in which we fear nature at her absolute worst, the finest being in the chilling but perfect film, Alive, and then there is the unfortunate Centigrade. Both films deal with the psychology of such an encounter when the weather turns against you, both deal with the panic, the terror of survival in the extreme, and yet in Frank Marshall’s 1993 cinematic tour de force Alive, the overwhelming need for survival by the group of Uruguayan rugby players is felt more keenly, more directly, than is captured in Brendan Walsh’s large screen version of events that Centigrade digs into.

For a film that deals with the claustrophobia of survival, where the two actors are for the majority of the film framed within the confines of a car caught in the icy remains of a torrential blizzard, there is little to be gained by the viewer in terms of reference, or of empathy. The reflection of this can be seen on screen with what is an expected outcome for one of the snow-marooned participants, for in their passing you would hope for a tug on the heart, a moment of despair at the plight and suffering, but all that comes across is relief, from both the viewer, and the cast and crew themselves.

Cold, but not through the extreme of temperature faced and the questions put forward by the film, but in the face of despair that more was not made of the film, its subject matter and the realisation that there is little warmth to be found at all during its time on screen. A film broken by its own premise, one that is not alive to the possibilities.

Ian D. Hall