The Last Battle
Madman
R4
DVD
Madman has recently been distributing
many of the films of French director Luc Besson. I
have come to like his work. Many of his films are a conventional genre but with
his own personal twist that lifts them above the average. The Last Battle was
his first feature film, dating back to 1983, and is so unconventional that it
has achieved cult status. It was filmed in black and white, there is no
dialogue, the music is minimal and the film raises more questions in the
viewer’s mind than it answers. The sudden ending seems more like a pause in the
plot as it leaves the end of the film open to further development or sequels.
It is set in some post-apocalyptic
world where small groups or individuals jealously guard what little they have
left. Water is precious, food is disappearing. The survivors have regressed to
almost animal savagery. Even the power of speech has been lost. The Man,
otherwise unnamed, is living in a huge ruined building that appears to have
once been an office block. It is now surrounded by desert and he has built an ultralight aircraft in which to escape and look for
company. Another group has settled nearby in a group of abandoned cars and has
their own small water supply, so they are not moving on. The Man steals a
battery from one of their vehicles to start his plane and escapes just in time.
When he runs out of fuel he is near an
almost abandoned village. The only village inhabitants are a doctor and a man
known as The Brute who is trying kill the doctor for
his food and anything else of value. The Brute attacks The Man and The Man is
saved by the doctor. While convalescing he finds the
doctor also has a woman – his wife? his daughter? –
locked up in a small room where he feeds her every day. Why she is captive we
don’t know. He becomes infatuated with her even though he has never seen her.
Meanwhile, though, they must fight off the constant attacks by The Brute.
It is one of those films where you go
away vaguely dissatisfied that there was not more, even though you know it
still wouldn’t answer the questions in your mind. You can let your imagination
run riot, but you will still be no closer to making sense of the film’s plot
because there is no sense – just the constant battle for survival in a world
that is no longer rational.
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