When a bus load of tourists from all walks of life runs out of gas in the middle of an apparently endless desert the set slowly gets staged not for a tale about survival via leaving the bus and searching for help, but of staging an improv version of "King Lear" that somehow manages to insinuate itself into the characters. While events predictably turn tragic for many if not all and the situation devolves into near-complete hopelessness (made the more intense by the use of digital video which creates a hell out of sunlight and sand), there is a sense of elements left untold and aspects left unexplored in THE KING IS ALIVE, leaving a bare-essentials character study which eventually semi-collapses in on itself.
An interesting experiment of a film with great improvised performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Bruce Davidson, and Romaine Bohringer, and one that perhaps with subsequent viewings could evolve within itself like many "experimental" films tend to do, but that at this moment remains a little too outré for the usual film-goer.
An interesting experiment of a film with great improvised performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Bruce Davidson, and Romaine Bohringer, and one that perhaps with subsequent viewings could evolve within itself like many "experimental" films tend to do, but that at this moment remains a little too outré for the usual film-goer.