Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End, his first feature film, is a claustrophobic, frustrating yet moving tale of post-apocalyptic parenting. Shoving a terrific cast into a few underground rooms, well-appointed with masterpieces decorating the walls and supplies aplenty, he sets up a situation where the privileged wait out their time, rewriting their histories, and slowly, inexorably, go mad. Oh, it’s also a musical.
Back in 2012, Oppenheimer’s Act of Killing exploded onto screens, an absolutely astonishing feat of non-fiction filmmaking that easily stands as one of the greatest ever crafted. Along with its companion piece The Look of Silence, shot first yet released two years later, the two provide exquisite insight into the human condition, from the performativity of evil acts to the almost superhuman ability to achieve grace and a level of acceptance and understanding, if not forgiveness. Both films are intensely impactful, with a relaxed pace that only intensifies the emotional impact. It was thus with a great deal of anticipation that his latest, an almost decade-long endeavor to bring The End to fruition, has been met by those so profoundly moved by what came before.
‘The End’ Has High Expectations to Meet
Obviously, expectations are an enemy to merely taking on the work on its own merits, but there’s an added ingredient at play here that does this storyline no favors. Taking into consideration that a bad film cannot be too short and a good one too long, there’s still a sense of built-in tedium exacerbated by a 148-minute running time, especially about what’s essentially a giant reminder of what lockdown during the COVID pandemic felt like for contemporary audiences. Rather than added anxiety, there’s a level of tedium, intended or not, that along with its artsy pretenses and off-putting setting, will be a hard sell for many moviegoers.
Yet for those willing to enter into this proverbial cave, there’s plenty to admire. First, given that for the most part a wide setting is eschewed and the meager scenery so often revisited, any attenuation of mood and spirit is down entirely to the performance from the committed cast. Led by a forlorn, broken former dancer played (and sung!) by Tilda Swinton, we see her hapless, oligarchical husband (Michael Shannon), her best friend (Bronagh Gallagher), his butler (Tim McInnerny), their doctor (Lennie James), and their pampered son (George MacKay).
What Is ‘The End’ About?
When an outsider (Moses Ingram) manages to pierce their cocoon-like environs the delicate balance goes awry, where, after decades of seclusion, the self-serving lies meant to buttress order begin to unravel. It’s through this, and the piercing lyrics of the sung-through moments, that much of the film’s emotional rawness is provided, the rest of the story playing in an almost aloof way with only occasional bouts of raw, explosive emotions interspersed throughout.
All musicals require that hoary notion of suspended disbelief, with the most articulate explanation being that one bursts into song when mere dialogue is insufficient to express emotion. That’s very much at play here, but it’s through the guilded, ornamentalized orchestration that the film finds any modicum of sunny lushness within the cramped confines of the underground compound. While the script is co-written with fellow Dane Rasmus Heisterberg (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair), the lyrics are by Oppenheimer and throughout speak to the rage and sadness of those physically saved yet emotionally left behind. His collaborator for creating the music is Marius De Vries, whose own career has quietly touched more than a normal share of masterful works as well.
De Vries’s credits include collaborations with the likes of Madonna, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, and Björk. He was music director for Baz Luhrmann’s lurid, luscious Moulin Rouge!, provided the score for Kick-Ass by Matthew Vaughn, and most recently provided an elegant score to Daniel Roher’s Oscar-winning documentary Navalny. All of these musical ingredients from a varied career are exercised here, from the pompous to the subtle to the superheroic, with angular chords meeting baroque excesses, leading to moments as unsettling as they are moving.
Save for Ingram, none of the cast have particularly strong voices, yet all manage to express their characters in deeply, sometimes unsettlingly intimate ways. Swinton’s raw, almost ravaged remarks are expressed in a higher register that feels reedy yet plausibly vulnerable. Occasionally harmonies swirl around each other, but for the most part, these are sung soliloquies, isolations within isolation, inner thoughts expressed within the context of the claustrophobia. Most of these songs are captured in either one or two shots, the camera swirling around in a kind of dance, the singing captured with what sounds like an on-set performance sung rather than mimed to a backing track, providing that much more emotional immediacy.
Through these interludes, as well as the film’s capacious running time and its languid telling, The End paradoxically feels ornamental and operatic while at the same time almost iconographic in its simplicity. We’re meant, of course, to feel the interminability of the events, the ending stretched thin like too little butter over crusty bread, as that’s what the characters themselves are going through. Yet when changes are made, normalcy overturned, and long-buried lies are unearthed, it’s somewhat difficult to register whether the visit to the lair was worth the bother.
‘The End’ Won’t Be for Everyone
The End is a film that is challenging, fascinating, but perhaps too flawed to be more than a mere footnote for many that are already predisposed to give it a chance. It’s so stridently against any true sense of closure that it’s hard to not question the neat way in which things are wrapped, as we witness new modes of acceptance to move forward while politely ignoring the true trauma exposed. It’s through this lens that Oppenheimer’s prior documentaries make their mark known, as the very question of how does one continue in any human way after true catastrophe is at the heart of those projects. Here, underground, while some convenient lies are exposed, we see the process of new ones being written, smiles for cameras that belie deeper tragedies, futures planned in the face of utter, near-solipsistic futility.
While The End may lack the zing of Don McKellar’s magnificent Last Night, the dark hostility of Craig Zobel’s Z for Zachariah, or even the chilling feeling of entombment in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Downfall, all apocalyptic in their own ways, Oppenheimer’s more subtle take may prove to be ripe for revisiting. If it only serves as an excuse for us to revel in the skills of this ensemble it may be enough, but given the complexity of the score, the poetic lyricism may require more time than a single viewing to parse. Its curated yet emotionally chaotic production design by Jette Lehmann (who also provided the look for Lars von Trier’s similarly themed Melancholia) is certainly worth more time to dig into the corners of the frame. Stripped from narrative concerns and only focusing on the character beats, this is almost certainly a film that on revisit will reward those willing to once again lock themselves underground.
Thus, watching The End may just be a beginning, an invitation to experience, and then experience it again, to be allowed to be bored by the repetition but perhaps to find the subtle details that, as Swinton’s character is quick to point out, make up the impact of what you see. We are invited to look closer, to fill in the cracks and take in the narrative sweep of everything from what’s on the walls to what history is being written to what songs are sung. Perhaps only a few will take on this invitation to revisit and engage with The End, to explore its crevices further, and to seek out deeper meanings, if there are any to be found. Perhaps, as the film’s entire setting suggests, only a few people is enough.
The End screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. It comes to theaters in the U.S. starting December 6.
