Velvet Road

Velvet Road - L. Gustavo Cooper (2011)

"Amidst the racial tensions of the Deep South in the early 60s, a plague runs rampant. Bobby is trying to save his infected wife and their unborn child from the disease spreading across the South. This short film depicting a zombie apocalypse in the Deep South explores the social issues of prejudice and racism."

I think most of us who have been sitting and watched this short movie have a pretty safe life and a decent bright future, despite all the everyday problems like when the car breaks down, or you do not get permission to fuck your wife because you have behaved clumsily according to the female gender norms. If we have a reasonably secure life with job and family and we are asked: What's the worst that can happen to you in life? I think most people would answer that the worst that could happen is that your children are killed in any way. It is intended that the children should survive their parents, BUT, it's definitely not like that in all parts of the world.

Recently, I started to discover that short films often have a deeper message to convey, and although this short flick deals with racism, which is actually really widespread disease in many countries today. My reflection and attention moves anyway to Bobby's desperate struggle for his wife who is infected and their unborn child. This is a fight that he probably understands how it will end but do not want to realize, so he fights to the unavoidable end in despair. If we look at the world as it exists today, many people almost live in a similar situation as if it would be a zombie invasion if we change the zombies to starvation or civil war.

If we now return to the movie itself, everything is almost perfectly done. The actors act very convincing, the special effects are wonderful and it´s a damn good director's debut of L. Gustave Cooper. Let's hope that this talent does a feature film in the future because it feels hard to find something bad in Velvet Road. The only bad thing about this movie might be that it is just a short movie; you actually want to see more.

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