Jul 23, 2014

Last Night

Saw Last Night, a film about the literal last night of the planet earth. An unspecified (although apparently sun-related) disaster is coming at midnight. Various inter-connected characters rush about Toronto tying up loose ends and predictably learning lessons and making connections and so forth. This film is short on spectacle and long on over-thought dialogues and weird inflection. There's very few rioting crowds and a lot less rape than you'd think. This is an essentially existential film, so hedonism, although respected as an alternate choice, is condemned as empty. Human interaction and the horror of being alone in the end is the primary motivator.

The film is very literary. It's full of little vignettes that cleverly mirror outside events. The dialogue is stiff stuff that sounds better on paper: "you may as well be cumming, as long as you're going." and is anyway delivered in a flat, ironic, bored way. I feel like it was adapted from a short story and suffers from over-adherence to the source. I dunno, it felt stiff. Its cleverness is often rewarding but is also sometimes a bit too cute. I'm thinking particularly of the fate of the woman in the bus here.

Anyway, the film has interesting ideas and characters which learn and grow and are organic and lovely. The action and acting are a bit stiff and deliberate. Ultimately I feel like I just somehow watched a book on tape.

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