Les Derniers jours du monde (2009)
Directed by Arnaud Larrieu, Jean-Marie Larrieu

Film Review

The famously unpredictable Arnaud and Jean-Marie Larrieu went into weirdness overdrive for their latest film, Les Derniers jours du monde (a.k.a. Happy End), an improbable fusion of existential road movie, disaster movie (of the blackly comedic variety) and full-on erotica.  It is as if Jean-Pierre Mocky and Jean-Claude Brisseau had teamed up with Jean-Luc Godard and Luis Buñuel, the result being a dizzyingly bizarre potpourri that resolutely defies not only classification but also logic and good taste.  The Larrieu brothers' previous film oddities - Peindre ou faire l'amour (2005) and Le Voyage aux Pyrénées (2008) - look tediously banal compared with this latest full throttle flight of fancy.

There is no doubt that the film boasts a top notch cast.  Mathieu Amalric (who starred in the Larrieu brothers' previous Brèche de Roland (2000) and Un homme, un vrai (2003)) is admirably cast as the everyman central character whose chronic bout of existential angst is not helped by the small matter of impending Armageddon.  Helping Amalric on his way as the world literally falls apart around him is a respectable supporting cast that includes Catherine Frot, Karin Viard and Sergi López, all of whom are deliriously funny (although it isn't clear if this is by accident or design).  Most eye-catching is Omahyra Mota, a Dominican supermodel turned actress whose ethereal presence and the fact that she appears naked throughout virtually the entire film (the directors certainly got their money's worth) adds to the primitive sensuality of the piece.

Les Derniers jours du monde is based on a novel of the same title by Dominique Noguez but also includes elements from Noguez's book Amour noir and Jim Harrison's novella The Man Who Gave Up His Name.  The Larrieu brothers reveal their rampant cinephilia through the innumerable references to the films of Jean Cocteau, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and Stanley Kubrick (it's hard to miss the cheeky nod to Eyes Wide Shut).  The classic Hollywood disaster movie provides the backdrop for the narrative and mines just about every facet of the genre, with man facing annihilation from a multitude of causes, ranging from nuclear missiles and terrorist attacks to water pollution, a deadly virus and a mysterious black ash.  The fact that none of these is convincingly rendered (the special effects are laughably bad in some places) adds to the film's tongue-in-cheek appeal.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that this is not a disaster movie in the traditional sense (or indeed any sense).  Rather, it is about one man desperately struggling to extract some kind of meaning out of the chaos of his existence.  The narrative switches back and forth between the hero's recent past (which recounts a passionate but doomed love affair) and present (set in the last few days preceding the total extinction of mankind).  As the corpses pile up around him in an orgy of destruction and despair, the appropriately named Robinson begins to realise what life is for and ultimately he finds peace in his soul - such a shame that he should do so just a split second before the entire planet goes up in flames.  There's a moral there somewhere, if you care to look for it.

Freakishly original as the film is, you can't help feeling that the Larrieu brothers have over-stretched themselves massively.  Maybe it was because they were too preoccupied with the film's immense technical and logistical challenges, but the directors should have given more attention to their script.  The narrative is painfully lacking in coherence and the characters are, without exception, little more than thinly sketched caricatures.  Opportunities to say something profound and daring are carelessly squandered amidst all the chaotic to-ing and fro-ing.  Overlong and unevenly paced, the film struggles to sustain the spectator's interest much beyond the midpoint, after which its anarchic eccentricity becomes tiresome.  The overriding impression is that the Larrieus are lazily skimming the surface of a very deep ocean, but lack the courage and maturity to dive into the depths and say something genuinely meaningful about the human experience.  Refreshingly weird the film may be, but it feels frustratingly shallow and incomplete.

Film Synopsis

Robinson Laborde is in Biarritz, reflecting on the events of the past year, when he learns that the world is about to end.  Across the globe, a series of natural and man-made disasters are causing pandemonium, and there seems to be no hope for humanity.  Robinson remembers his meeting a Hispanic beauty named Laetitia a year ago and the passionate love affair that ensued, ruining his marriage to Chloé.  On the spur of the moment, and with time fast running out, Robinson makes up his mind to travel to Spain in the vague hope of finding Laetitia.  On the way, he meets another woman, Ombeline, with whom he pursues a short romantic liaison before she decides that life is no longer worth living...