The End
The Enddirector Joshua Oppenheimer reflects on the dangerous qualities of Leslie Townes Hope and how his unexampled approach to the musical carries on the themes at the core of his docudrama likeThe Act of Killing . After directing some of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of the twenty-first one C likeThe Act of KillingandThe Look of Silence , The Endproves to be a compelling exploration of what people go through while trying to traverse the things they ’ve done . Set within a sand trap after the remnant of the world , The Endcenters around survivor dealing with a newfound guest .
This forces the group as a whole to value the choice they made to outlast the collapse of the populace and the knockout decisions they made to insure their future at the monetary value of others . The Endis a harrowing and powerful plastic film , that employ melodic tropes as a means of cut into into the guilty conscience , furies , and hopes of the cast . During an audience withScreenRant , Joshua Oppenheimer discussed the vernacular threads between his cinema , the unexpected joys of coaction on his first feature - distance tale film , and the contradictions of hope .
The Lie Of Hope At The Heart Of The End
“That means that the songs are these breakdowns at their most extreme, captured on film…”
Screen Rant : So much of this film is rooted in an almost theatrical presentation . The Endis very much a handful of locations , a little cast of characters , and a very specific story . The fact that it’sa pic musicalin that kind of place is even more telling as a solution . Why did you feel that was the right way to approachThe End ?
Joshua Oppenheimer : I think that the fact that it ’s a melodious is what have it a picture about illusion , about abnegation , about self deception . I think the film deal with a flesh of desperation which goes around in the sheep ’s vesture of promise . It ’s a false hope . This is a delusive hope , that somehow , magically , tomorrow will be good than today , and everything will work out for the best . That ’s the same hope that incite Wile E. Coyote as he runs off the edge of the cliff and thinks he can just keep going until some higher cognisance make him realize that possibly he does n’t experience the ground beneath his feet anymore , at which point , whoosh and clangor .
While Joker : Folie à Deux may have divided viewers and fail at the box office , spate of other motion-picture show melodious sequels could be rightfully keen .
Joshua Oppenheimer : That false hope is the source , it ’s the motion picture ’s total signifier . The character tattle out of that . When the character sing , crisis has caused it or what verity has make it ? The character sing when the truth has get their delusions to unravel and they startle desperately search for new melodies , new ditties , petty new hymn to convince themselves that all is well in their world . That means that the birdsong are these breakdown at their most uttermost , captured on pic , that involve closeness and presence and acquit witness to these character reference who are delicate .
These characters are vulnerable and human as they reach desperately for bits of flotsam and jetsam following the shipwreck of their illusions . It ’s about trying to cobblestone together head game . As we ’re view human beings struggling to rebuild their illusions , you ca n’t obviously do that and go into a melodious fancy sequence at the same fourth dimension . We ’re watching illusions being build , rather than escaping into an illusion .
What The End Shares With The Act Of Killing
“When the narrative fails, when the dramatization fails, when they fall silent and are helpless, that’s when truth breaks through.”
Screen Rant : That theme of self - delusion being presented through an esthetic outlet like singing shit me think of your former documentaryThe Act of Killing , where you consecrate these people who had committed atrocities the chance to see their action through the genus Lens of filmmaking . As a creative , what do you find so compelling and interesting about those lies we assure ourselves ?
Joshua Oppenheimer : Well , there ’s a rubbing . I cogitate the friction between the storey we tell from our unambiguously human ability to pattern the world in spoken language and the unaccountable secret and chaos and horror and peach …. all of these nouns fail , because what I ’m describing is beyond language . Somehow , the nothingness slash everythingness of the universe , becoming witting of itself , the friction between those two things is the position of being . That sounds abysmally philosophic , but filmmaking is too heavy , too backbreaking , too wide , too time consume to be deserving it , unless you ’re looking to really feel and understand what the nature of being is .
I recollect that all these picture show , The Act of Silence , The Look of Silence , andThe End , are about our meditations on storytelling . It ’s how we tell narration to make the world in such a way that we can know with it more well . But the unintended consequence of that is that we end up lie down about it , and the prevarication have terrible consequences of their own , which then lead us to double down on those Trygve Halvden Lie in a form of down vicious oscillation .
Custom image by Simone Ashmoore
That connection is there betweenThe EndandThe Act of Killing , which you pointed out , but I think perhaps the more salient link is that the melodious numbers are toThe Endwhat the dramatizations are toThe Act of Killing . In the latter , it ’s people [ like Anwar Congo ] dramatizing their memories of genocide . He has this crisis of question that comes as he sample to present his variant of the issue to me . He realize that how he really regard himself is not at all how he ’s presenting himself , and that crack he attempt to paper over with another dramatisation .
Those dramatizations are never just represent as kind of glorious films . It ’s the crack that we ’re really look for . It ’s the same here . I always said , the characters singing are these sort of luminously beautiful lies as they sort of reach for and then momentary find well - being in these soaring melody . Those melodies control not the trueness , but prevarication . And it ’s only when they hit the bulwark of truth and stop singing that the truth screams through . That ’s in the quiet , when they hit a rampart and they stop sear and they return unsounded . That ’s where the truth screams through , and that ’s the same as in theAct of Killing . When the narrative fail , when the dramatisation flush it , when they shine tacit and are helpless , that ’s when Sojourner Truth breaks through .
The Biggest Surprise Of The End Was The Collaboration Behind The Scenes
“I wouldn’t say the film is not how I imagined it. It is just a deeper version of it.”
Screen Rant : What would you say was the big surprise you encounter during product onThe End ?
Joshua Oppenheimer : One of the things I loved about this cognitive operation , which was different from making the documentaries , was the horse sense of full openness between myself and my cooperator . Not just principal crew , like my cinematographer Mikhail Krichman or my composer Joshua Schmidt . The choreographer , yield designer , but also , of track the cast . I could start a rehearsal , and then ultimately we could bring that frontward into the shooting by saying , ' for me , this is what this scene is really about . But they know what it ’s like to really be this part .
What is the true statement of that in your experience ? ' possibly I ’m awry . Maybe there ’s something deeper or that I ca n’t even imagine , or that ’s conterminous to what I ’m consider is the core group of this scene . Watching artists of this variety of impossible brilliance mine their mind , their individual , their experience , their foxiness , and then surprise me with gifts , with path of understanding these moments that are rich … even though this is fable and everything is being created by us , I could therefore lean back and start to relax and invite them to bring me gifts , to let me do the same thing I do when I sit behind that monitor , do the same thing that I do when I make a documentary film , which is to depend for authenticity .
A wealthy family lives in isolation within a luxurious bunker, unaware of the world beyond their walls. When a mysterious girl arrives at their doorstep, her presence threatens to unravel the delicate balance of their secluded existence, leading to a tense exploration of trust, survival, and buried secrets.
I got to expect for those moments that I instantly recognise as straight because they ’re not what I anticipate , and that becomes a means of plumb the depth of a vision . That was a beautiful discovery that I earmark me to probably move away from the kind of inevitable beginner ’s mistake of over - directing . What was beautiful about it was that it get me thinking about vision , because it ’s not that the film is different from how I imagined it . It ’s that vision at each leg in the process only takes me so far . It break me the direction to take the next step . Like , I ’ll continue in that way . And eventually the whole deal reach and all its contingent becomes clear all the way through the redaction and even the military post - product . I would n’t say the film is not how I imagined it . It is just a deeper version of it . It is deeper than anything I could have imagined , but it is absolutely a reflexion of the vision that initiated the journey .
More About The End (2024)
Twenty - five long time after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable , Mother , Father and Son are confined to their palatial dugout , where they struggle to maintain hope and a mother wit of normality by clinging to the rituals of daily life — until the arrival of a stranger , Girl , upends their happy modus operandi . Son , a naïve twenty - something who has never witness the remote world , is fascinated by the freshman , and abruptly the delicate Julian Bond of blind optimism that have held this wealthy kin group together begin to fret . As tensions rise , their apparently idyllic existence starts to tumble , with long - quash feelings of compunction and resentment threatening to destroy the family ’s delicate balance . But their figuring with difficult the true also points to a unlike fashion forth , one found on acceptance , love , and a electrical capacity for change .
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A wealthy family lives in closing off within a princely sand trap , unaware of the humanity beyond their wall . When a mysterious young lady arrives at their doorstep , her bearing imperil to unknot the soft balance of their secluded existence , lead to a tense exploration of corporate trust , survival , and bury secrets .
