Le volcan qui tue

With its low-key acting, and real, believable characters, this film was a superb re-enactment of what became a nightmare for those closest to it. At first, no one is able to believe what is predicted to be coming. Gradually, the reality becomes inescapable. Art Carney, as Harry S. Truman, is completely believable, and understandable, as a man set in his ways and content with his life, unwilling to run away and perhaps unable to comprehend the totality of the disaster that is looming. How very human! We would all like terrible realities to go away, but often they are worse even than the forecasts. In light of 9/11, the poignancy of the human relationships in this film is even greater. We are so vulnerable in the face of many of the events of life, and the most important things we have to cling to are each other, and our relationships to the people we love, and to life itself. A haunting, under-rated film.

"St.Helens" centers around the events leading up to the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in Washington with the story beginning on the day volcanic activity started on March 20,1980 and ending on the day of the cataclysmic May 18,1980 eruption.David Huffman plays David Jackson,a vulcanologist who is sent by US Geological Survey to investigate the activity.His character is based on David Johnson,a real life vulcanologist who died during the eruption.Art Carney plays Mount St. Helens Lodge owner Harry Randall Truman.He refuses to leave his place of living during the volcanic activity.Jackson falls in love with a single mother named Linda Steele.On 18th May the volcano explodes..."St.Helens" is very loosely based on facts.It's an entertaining disaster drama with lovely score by Italian band Goblin.The entire movie was shot on location in Bend,Oregon and at Mount Bachelor in Central Oregon's Cascades,but there are some real-life images of Mount Saint Helens taken during an eruption.8 out of 10.

The movie St. Helens was a bit slow, especially how the film was drawing up the timelines. Simply I knew what I was waiting for during the whole time was May 18, 1980 at 8:32 a.m. for the "big explosion." Needless to say, the film was a bit dull but that is almost an unfair comparison when its compared to witnessing Mt. St. Helens unleash her fury in real life. What mountain is next?

First I must take issue with the reviewer who found this film boring because he classed it as a disaster movie, and felt there was not the suspense necessary for a good disaster movie. Personally I would question whether disaster movies really comprise a distinct category - they are dramas in the thriller category where the more usual dramatic excitement of violent action is replaced by the tension of waiting to see whether or not the impending disaster can be staved off. To maintain this tension, such a movie has to be based on a fictional story. By contrast, films of real events can be full documentaries which were filmed only in advance or concurrently; or semi-documentaries in which some of the essential scenes have had to be fictionally, but as accurately as possible, reconstructed and filmed after the event. St. Helens clearly fits this latter category. Such films should have a sufficiently dramatic story to retain the viewers interest throughout, but they also have a very important role to play in conveying to the general public in dramatic terms the actual impact of the event in question on the lives of the ordinary people who were affected. We judge the success of semi-documentaries from the extent to which they succeed in satisfying these two objectives. In my view St. Helens meets both objectives well, and was artistically a most successful film.

Volcanic eruptions are not rare events, but the eruption in North America of a volcano generally regarded by the public as extinct, attracted enormous public attention as events unfolded day by day. Millions in North America experienced dull skies and falling ash over a period of several days, and those of us who are old enough remember the story very well. Ultimately this eruption cost fifty nine lives, but two of these in particular provided the media with ongoing human interest stories and later provided the core story for this movie. One was the young geologist from the U.S. Geological Survey who allowed his enthusiasm to run away with him to such an extent that he was conducting monitoring in an area very close to the mountain when the eruption took place. He saw it happen, and had time to report it by telephone before he was overwhelmed by the escaping gases or falling rocks. The other was the elderly retired man living alone in a cabin on Spirit Lake very close to the volcano who consistently refused to be evacuated until too late. These are the principal characters in this semi-documentary, and both are portrayed very sympathetically so that their self destructive behaviour becomes quite understandable. I would rate this as a very good film - I also have an 'official' full documentary account of this eruption on videotape, it provides many interesting facts about the scientific impact on the area; but this dramatised semi-documentary with its human interest stories is the one which will bear watching repeatedly, and it is commendably careful not to seriously distort any of the facts in the interests of artistic licence. We may never be near a volcano that is threatening to erupt, but we read about such eruptions each year and this film helps to give us a better understanding of what one is really like.

This is a superior made for TV movie about one of the worst natural disasters in the history of North America. The film centers on the crusty old mountain man Harry Truman played by the fine actor Art Carney who gives one of his best performances. Harry was a cracker barrel philosopher of sorts who loved all the attention given him my the media. Determined to stay put come hell or high water or a mountain blowing up in his face, Harry represents the stubborn American type who wants to hang on to cherished memories of his wife and daughter at any cost, choosing to die with his canine companion than to face an uncertain future elsewhere in a world he doesn't know. Art Cartney captures the spirit and essence of this eccentric oddity out of place in the present high-tech world he never made.

The weakest aspect of this film is the awful music. Who ever tried to write the country and western songs had absolutely no feel for the genre. (The Italian rock band Goblin is credited.) The lyrics are cold and lifeless, the melodies hackneyed and bland. Too bad they couldn't have got someone of the caliber of Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton to give the flick some real s**t-kicking hoedowns and barroom crying in your beer songs.

The cast other than Art Carney is adequate. David Huffman and Cassie Yates make a cute couple of opposites attracting, he a professional geologist, she an uneducated waitress with a failed marriage and a son. But they make the relationship believable and the ending probable. Of special note is the appearance of Bill McKinney as one of the loggers Kilpatrick. He is perhaps the most famous villain in screen history because of his work as the Mountain Man in "Deliverance." In "St. Helens" he gets the short end of the stick.

The on-location photography is an added attraction with actual shots of the Mt. St. Helens eruption inserted. The scene toward the end where Harry is fishing as the mountain spews forth its load is harrowing. The attentive viewer will come away from this picture with new questions concerning the meaning of life and its brevity.