"The agitated, ominous vibration of giant power lines and quaking transmission towers feels like a Greek chorus throughout Paul Greengrass's intense new wildfire thriller, The Lost Bus. Over the course of the film, Greengrass regularly cuts away to the churning cables and metal structures, as well as to the roaring flames of the 2018 Camp Fire, as the blaze makes its way across the mountains and cliffs of Northern California."
"This helps us follow the spread of this real-life disaster, and it also conveys the puniness and impotence of the mortals fighting it. Based on real-life stories from the Camp Fire (still the deadliest wildfire in California history), The Lost Bus, which just premiered at the Toronto Film Festival ahead of a short September theatrical release and an October 3 debut on Apple TV+, offers plenty of suspense and heroism. But it's all tempered by the knowledge that these fires are inescapable, growing, and unstoppable."
Paul Greengrass places agitated power lines and quaking transmission towers as a recurring visual motif, cutting to churning cables and roaring flames to map the spread of the 2018 Camp Fire across Northern California. The Lost Bus centers on Kevin McKay, a down-on-his-luck school-bus driver in Paradise, California, who must drive a busload of people away as the town burns. Kevin's personal life is in shambles: a dying dog, an estranged teenage son, an elderly mother, a critical ex-wife, missed inspections, and financial troubles. The film blends classic disaster-movie shorthand with suspense and heroism while emphasizing the inescapable, growing nature of the fires.
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