Culture Watch: The End

Written and directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, The End is an end-of-days story about how one family navigates their post-apocalyptic reality.

We never learn the names of these characters - they are simply referred to as Father (Michael Shannon), Mother (Tilda Swinton), Son (George MacKay), Friend (Bronagh Gallagher), Butler (Tim McInnerny), and Doctor (Lennie James). They are wealthy family who have survived the earth's environmental disaster by isolating themselves in a remote salt mine.

However the rhythm of the family's existence is disrupted by the sudden arrival of a young woman (Moses Ingram) who has somehow made her way from the outside world into the protective cocoon of the bunker.

And, guess what, it's a musical.

As an exercising in filmmaking, this is an interesting project with mixed results.

The cast is excellent but they are actors who are singing and the choice to include musical moments and sung dialogue throughout the film is probably the most challenging creative choice. You could argue that the musical aspect adds to the hyper-real feel of the film or perhaps enables emotions to be conveyed in different ways, but I feel that the narrative and the character arcs would probably have had more punch if the actors had simply been able to deliver performances with words and feelings.

The film is strongest as an exploration in the coping mechanisms we deploy when navigating trauma, and the stories we tell ourselves - the mythology we create in order to understand our place in the world and the justify the choices we've made.

Frustratingly, we never really get to dig much below the surface of these characters and the world that they inhabit. Where that leaves us is an unsatisfying uncertainty as to what the point of the film was - what was all it about? What is Oppenheimer trying to say?

The End is a long film. If we've only got limited time left to enjoy life as we know it, I'm not sure that watching The End is the best way to spend our most finite of resources.