In The End, Joshua Oppenheimer turns his camera from documentary towards fiction while continuing his exploration of the lies people tell themselves. The film opens with a young man (George Mackay) painstakingly painting miniature figures and landscapes onto a large diorama; on closer inspection, the diorama seems to encapsulate a melange of US history and geography, with the Hollywood sign, a railroad, and the Wild West sitting beside each other. Soon the rest of the household interrupt his project with their own – his Mother (Tilda Swinton) obsessing over the details of her fine art collection and display; his Father (Michael Shannon) planning his memoirs; and a Butler (Tim McInnerny), Doctor (Lennie James), and a nebulously defined maid-stroke-advisor (Bronagh Gallagher) assist in their endeavours.
It soon becomes clear that these people are living entirely cut off from anyone else, miles under the earth in a salt mine bunker, retreating into immense wealth and hoarded resources as the world above them burns. Their stagnant peace is interrupted when a lone young woman (Moses Ingram) finds her way in, threatening the denial, compromises, and corruption at the heart of their survival.
The End never shows the apocalypse unfolding above, though fires are mentioned. Similarly ambiguous are characters’ names; while those mentioned in their pre-bunker life have given names, the figures on screen are only known by their relation to the other (Mackay’s character is ‘Son’, Gallagher’s is known only as ‘Friend’, and Ingram’s is ‘Girl’). What is more troubling is the intimation throughout that Father was a fossil fuel executive whose exploitation of his workers led to riots and mass death, not to mention the current environmental catastrophe. Father, however, would never admit this. He is coaching Son to ghostwrite his life story, furious that Butler has accidentally let Son see some real headlines in his research instead of solely relying on Father’s verbal recollections.
Like his nonfiction films The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, director and co-writer Oppenheimer continues his fascination with the worst sides of humanity. While the details of the apocalypse and Father’s corporate (and other) crimes are undefined, it is clear that only the uber-wealthy have been able to escape the catastrophes above, with little thought to those left behind. Of course, the only way this family can survive is through lies – to themselves, to others, and always to cover up the imperfections in their past. Girl’s journey through incomprehension, to frustration, to anger, to acceptance of this hollow ethos is a troubling one, making The End a film that sits long in the mind after credits roll.
The family’s conspicuous riches jar against their constantly enacted survival drills and the stark, fluorescent-lit tunnels just outside their door. In this isolation and ensuing idleness, Mother becomes obsessed with arranging her paintings so that no subtle (subtle is worse!) flaws disrupt her equilibrium. Son’s diorama of history he never lived through, much less visited the sites of, speaks to a paucity of personal history and meaning.
But their knowledge and reverence towards the great men and great art of the past cannot give their lives meaning or change the fate of the world – if they even would choose to change it. This obsession with smoothing out cracked walls, hiding imperfections, venerating heroes of old, and ignoring what cannot be changed is an unsubtle yet powerful thematic representation of the lies and crimes of their past. When these untruths and contradictions come to the fore, The End hits a new turning point, and a new crack that cannot be papered over.
The film’s dialogue is similarly unsubtle, but it is truthfully delivered by the cast who all throw themselves fully into this audacious picture. A 150-minute post-apocalyptic musical is an intriguing but difficult sell, and The End is not helped by the fact that the songs are aurally challenging. The songs are light on repeated verses and choruses (though one appears throughout to great effect), prioritising sprechstimme and recitative as dialogue morphs into song and back again. Furthermore, no one in the cast is a trained singer, and the songs push at the upper limits of their ranges. Mackay has a few musical films under his belt and acquits himself well as a singing actor, and Swinton’s soprano is something of a discovery. The result is not always pleasant to listen to, but it heightens the uncanny and unnatural in this off-kilter, isolated existence. In a Q&A following the Glasgow Film Festival screening, actor George Mackay mentioned that Oppenheimer created The End as a musical rather than a straight drama because musicals often deal – and thrive – in the realm of delusion. In this regard, The End is a complete success.
The musical finesse comes in the extraordinary, exquisite camera work and blocking. All praise is due Director of Photography Mikhail Krichman, whose camera swirls through doors and skillfully pulls focus from face to face, seamlessly artistically elevating this tale of humans caught by their own mendacity and greed and finding true beauty amidst the unsettling circumstances. The performers are similarly excellent; with the exception of one late reveal, they entirely sell the extreme situation in a way that makes these complicated people deeply sympathetic, whatever their pasts may be.
The End is audacious in the extreme, a film certain to divide audiences but whose thematic depth is well worth the discomfiting journey. If musicals are indeed tales of delusion, this is delusion taken to its darkest, yet horribly believable, extreme.
The End recently screened at the Glasgow Film Festival.
Learn more about the film, including how to watch, at the Glasgow site for the title.
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