The End (2024)
January 18, 2025 6:29 AM - Subscribe
Twenty-five years after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable, Mother, Father and Son are confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life—until the arrival of a stranger, Girl, upends their happy routine. As tensions rise, their seemingly idyllic existence starts to crumble.
Because of Joshua Oppenheimer previous documentaries ('The act of killing' and 'The look of silence',) I was really looking forward to it.
This new apocalyptic THE END was hailed by David Ehrlich and other critics as a ground-breaking achievement and the best musical of 2024. It opens with a TS Elliot quote, and it stars oil tycoon Michael Shannon and wife Tilda Swinton who fortified their family in a salt-mine luxury bunker 25 years after everybody on the surface of the earth perished. A bold and ambitious project, like 'The umbrellas of Cherbourg', it combines a meditation on the lies and the guilt of being left behind, with characters who burst out singing whenever they want to underscore a painful emotional point. But in the end, it didn't work for me; Except of one beautiful song, If only I, the rest of the score, as much as it tried to emulate Stephen Sondheim, was forgettable, and at the end of the 2.5 hour run, the dramatic interactions of the family felt like an unfocused soap opera.
Your take?
[It seems that FanFare doesn't pick up the IMDb listing - maybe because the film didn't have an official US premiere yet?] I saw it, as always, on Cataz. YMMV.
Because of Joshua Oppenheimer previous documentaries ('The act of killing' and 'The look of silence',) I was really looking forward to it.
This new apocalyptic THE END was hailed by David Ehrlich and other critics as a ground-breaking achievement and the best musical of 2024. It opens with a TS Elliot quote, and it stars oil tycoon Michael Shannon and wife Tilda Swinton who fortified their family in a salt-mine luxury bunker 25 years after everybody on the surface of the earth perished. A bold and ambitious project, like 'The umbrellas of Cherbourg', it combines a meditation on the lies and the guilt of being left behind, with characters who burst out singing whenever they want to underscore a painful emotional point. But in the end, it didn't work for me; Except of one beautiful song, If only I, the rest of the score, as much as it tried to emulate Stephen Sondheim, was forgettable, and at the end of the 2.5 hour run, the dramatic interactions of the family felt like an unfocused soap opera.
Your take?
[It seems that FanFare doesn't pick up the IMDb listing - maybe because the film didn't have an official US premiere yet?] I saw it, as always, on Cataz. YMMV.
I was curious about this one, largely because of its broad similarity to Paul Bartel's Shelf Life. Also surprised this hasn't had a wider release.
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:37 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by Ashwagandha at 6:37 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
@Ashwagandha, it's absolutely worth watching, especially - as always - if you don't read about it beforehand.
I had this song on loop for the last 6 hours, and heard it maybe 30 times.... But now I switched to the complete soundtrack...
posted by growabrain at 6:42 AM on January 18
I had this song on loop for the last 6 hours, and heard it maybe 30 times.... But now I switched to the complete soundtrack...
posted by growabrain at 6:42 AM on January 18
@Ashwagandha - Apparently there was also a Brendan Frasier film with a similar concept. I didn't see it but I doubt they compare: This is a "serious" film that starts with a TS Eliot quote, and deals with "big" ideas.
posted by growabrain at 6:49 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
posted by growabrain at 6:49 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]
Mod note: (Yep, IMDb picked up the wrong End. I sent a msg to the mods to fix it manually)
Fixed!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:20 AM on January 18
Fixed!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:20 AM on January 18
growabrain, I pretty much agree with your assessment. I felt like this movie was so close to being amazing, if only it had gone a little further on any axis-- if only the music had been a little better, or the editing had been a little tighter, or it had been a little bit funnier, or darker-- but at the end it didn't seem like it had bothered to get around to stating a thesis. There's a bunch of ideas packed into this narrative but most of them never got developed enough to really connect. Like, it's an interesting conceit to only give names to the dead, but why? I imagine there's a notional cut of this movie that blew me away, but this wasn't quite it.
Which drives me crazy because there's so much to recommend it. The setting! The set! The lighting! The dancing! The acting! The Swinton! The way that the film played with the passage of time, emulating the characters' disconnected relationship with time! That fireworks scene! There's just so much great stuff, but when the curtain fell the only thing I could think of was the weary ghost of Anton Chekhov, staggering under the weight of an entire arsenal, piteously wailing "but what am I supposed to do with all these guns?"
posted by phooky at 9:55 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]
Which drives me crazy because there's so much to recommend it. The setting! The set! The lighting! The dancing! The acting! The Swinton! The way that the film played with the passage of time, emulating the characters' disconnected relationship with time! That fireworks scene! There's just so much great stuff, but when the curtain fell the only thing I could think of was the weary ghost of Anton Chekhov, staggering under the weight of an entire arsenal, piteously wailing "but what am I supposed to do with all these guns?"
posted by phooky at 9:55 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]
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posted by growabrain at 6:32 AM on January 18