Tag Archives: Existential

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FANTASIA 2025: IT ENDS (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Alex Ullom

FEATURING: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole

PLOT: Four friends miss a turn on the road, and it appears their route will now go on forever.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Riffing on The Exterminating Angel, four Gen-Z are trapped in much shabbier circumstances, and doomed to wonder when—or even whether—they end.

COMMENTS: It’s a simple, and pleasingly silly, little game: you choose two options for defense, and the two unchosen options are tasked with taking you out. The options are as follow: one man with a gun, 5 gorillas, 50 hawks, and 10,000 rats. Theoretical nonsense, of course, but not a bad way to spark conversation. James doubts the hawks’ merit, Fish thinks a lone gunman can’t amount to much, Day hasn’t been paying much attention (though later favors gorillas, after teaching them to shoot), and Travis wonders just why the heck he returned to town to catch up with his recently graduated high school buddies.

These friends are pleasant company, which is good: we viewers are trapped with them inside their Jeep for the better part of ninety minutes. Conversation becomes panicky, aggravated from time to time by mysterious forest dwellers, who swarm the vehicle whenever it stops, all of them screaming desperately for help. Inside the Jeep, it is safe. Kind of. Did you ever find yourself stuck in a car ride with someone and it went on a few hours too long? Imagine that extended across untold tens-of-thousands of miles along a generically forested highway, with the threat of violent death waiting just beyond the tree line.

It Ends is a simple movie, with one mobile set, and it runs a gamut of emotions. It goes on and on and on, its protagonists trapped and spurred by fear and boredom and the ever-so-rare flicker of hope. (Is it taking longer for the forest freaks to suss they’ve stopped? Is that another car off the side of the road? And… is it raining for the first time in months?) As with any road trip, particularly infinite ones, I suppose, things get cyclical. James, ever stoic, ever cerebral, and often a bit of a cold-blooded jerk, begins to wonder if that cycle is part of the key. Day, Fish, and Travis might be right, too, in feeling that an eternity of traveling down a highway is all that’s ahead. It Ends sprinkles comedy throughout, too, as the youths’ banter delightfully combines an entering adulthood flippant wit with  crumbling coping mechanisms.

The odd premise carried my interest, and if left to just that, perhaps I’d consider this to be some high-quality quirk. However, I’m inclined to pay substantial dues to a movie with a punchline, and this one hits hard, and sudden. Through tension, charm, and ambiguity, It Ends is a treat for film gabbers. Me, I’m choosing 50 hawks and 10,000 rats to watch my back. You?

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“What begins as a casual late-night drive among recent grads quickly warps into a surreal nightmare… The film’s ambiguity works in its favor, leaving the story open to interpretation (although many are going to be frustrated by the finale).” — Louisa Moore, Screen Zealots (festival screening)

Capsules

CAPSULE: AN EVENING SONG (FOR THREE VOICES) (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Graham Swon

FEATURING: , , Peter Vack

PLOT: Barbara and Richard, married writers from the East Coast, move to the Midwest and hire Martha, a quietly pious local, as their maid.

COMMENTS: One narrator evokes simple matter-of-factness; the second narrator segues into a reminiscence of another world; and the final narrator readily apologizes for what he’s about to do. These three voices in Graham Swon’s feature, An Evening Song, are its body, spirit, and mind; with the three characters—an innocent country local named Martha, the disillusioned writer-prodigy Barbara, and her mentally restless husband, Richard—conveying the film’s philosophical pull and tug. Events do literally happen in An Evening Song (indeed, it is loosely based on real events and individuals), but Swon has crafted more of a meditation oscillating around a narrative through-line than a traditional drama.

Over the course of eighty-odd minutes, Swon’s players perform the strange and gentle decline of a marriage on the rocks. Relocating to the Middle of Nowhere, Iowa, two different writerly types observe their hired help from their own perspectives. Barbara, having begun to give up on life more than a decade prior, has reached a critical stage of ennui that is only slightly alleviated by the discovery of this mysterious, scarred country girl, who seems to embody a delightfully unsolvable riddle. Richard, devoid of any bent towards mysticism, is commendably observant and empathetic, and entranced by Martha as well—but as a riddle to attempt solving. Under the couple’s gaze, Martha gazes back: she perceives Barbara’s ethereality with admiration, but also perceives Richard’s constantly ticking pragmatism with appreciation. We have here a love triangle, of sorts.

But in what way? Swon raises many questions in this film—and wanders (with purpose) down many avenues. Richard, bless his heart, accommodates to his utmost, and for all we can observe is impossible to offend, disappoint, or anger. (This is for the best, no doubt, as he has found himself dropped right in the middle of two particularly conundrous individuals.) Barbara does love Richard (maybe, probably), but longs for a life in the mystical “nowhere” reminisced throughout her narrations—which Richard cannot provide. Martha, on the other hand, does: her piety and humility raise her to ineffable heights in a dream she conveys to Barbara during a climactic, quiet encounter in a placid field, after which the story pivots and moves irrevocably toward the dissolution of Barbara’s will to remain on this plane of existence.

The song continues, narrations bump up against one another and fuse, with all three becoming harmoniously concurrent during a contemplative, sleepless night-and-day meshing of perspectives. This film is no Eraserhead, to be certain; but it is a curious experience. With full marks for dreamy ethereality, Swon’s pocket-sized meditation manages a tension from its competing and complementary voices, creating something nearly imperceptible, maybe close to a nothing, but which lingers in the mind like a mystifying apparition.

An Evening Song (for Three Voices) completed a short run in New York last week and will play at the Acropolis in Los Angeles for one night only, May 29. We’ll let you know when it’s available online.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Stylistically, Swon’s film shares an aesthetic kinship with some of Guy Maddin’s films, but it is far less accessible… The ambition and craftsmanship are laudable, but the hallucinatory haze too often produces a sensation of narrative drift. Recommended with the above caveats for experienced patrons of unconventional cinema” — Joe Bendel, J.B. Spins (contemporaneous)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ENDGAME (2000) / OPERATION: ENDGAME (2010)

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The second highest-grossing motion picture of all time—the product of a little indie shingle that hit the jackpot, called Avengers: Endgame—is also by fiat the highest-grossing motion picture of all time with the word “endgame” in the title. That’s not as easy a title to grab as you might think; IMDb lists several dozen features, shorts, and TV episodes that have relied upon the handy term for the final moves of a chess match, most of which preceded Marvel’s grand finale. So it’s probably the law of averages that put two different Endgames on our reader-suggested review queue within spitting distance of each other. Aside from their titles, these two films share exactly two common elements: they both use hurtful language with reckless abandon, and they are both shot on film. Beyond that, you couldn’t ask for two similarly titled stories to be further apart in style, tone, and subject matter. What makes them both worthy to bear the standard of games that end? Let’s dig in.

ENDGAME (2000)

DIRECTED BY: Conor McPherson

FEATURING: , , Charles Simon, Jean Anderson

PLOT: In a barren house at the end of the world, a blind and decrepit old man lives with his parents (who occupy a pair of rubbish bins) and his hobbled servant, who is contemplating a departure.

COMMENTS: Let’s give a warm welcome back to Samuel Beckett, previously seen round these parts waiting for a friend. Another entry from Irish television’s epic “Beckett on Film” cycle capturing all the great writer’s stage works on celluloid for posterity, Endgame is here to deliver the author’s vision of a bleak and doomed future for the human race, precisely according to the author’s wishes. The set is an almost-empty room, devoid of any decoration or furnishing that isn’t occupied by an actor for the duration. Beckett was notoriously allergic to anything ornamental (as with Godot, he originally wrote Endgame in French to curb any tendencies toward florid vocabulary), so what we see and hear is not just what matters but all that matters.

What we can see is definitely a surreal nightmare. All four characters are stricken with various invalidities. Hamm, the apparent lord of the manor, doesn’t enter so much as he is unveiled, and when he speaks it is to declare himself the center of the universe. “Can there be misery loftier than mine?” He is immobile, and thus relies upon the assistance of a crippled man who is himself unable to sit down. The apocalypse has obliterated everything outside of this room. (“Nothing on the horizon?” Hamm asks. “What in God’s name could there be on the horizon?” Clov replies.) And then there are the upstage trash cans that Continue reading THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ENDGAME (2000) / OPERATION: ENDGAME (2010) →

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CAPSULE: ANIMALIA (2023)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Oumaima Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou

PLOT: A pregnant woman in Morocco is stranded away from her rich husband when an apocalyptic religious event sweeps the globe.

Still from Animalia (2023)

COMMENTS: Pregnant Itto, a poor Berber girl who has recently married a scion of a wealthy and influential family, is basically happy in her luxurious new life—despite feeling that her mother-in-law, in particular, will never completely accept her. An ambiguous global emergency disrupts her peace, however, separating her from her husband and forcing her to flee into the countryside, where she must confront both sexual prejudice and class resentment. Soon after, she has a hallucinatory experience of a cosmic, religious character, before reuniting with her rich family, who feast on as they always have despite the fact that the world appears to be coming to an end.

The effects of the worldwide disruption are kept as minimal as possible, which makes it seem even weirder and more inexplicable. Animals are acting strange, especially dogs, who now roam about in packs on rooftops, befriending some people while attacking others. Certain small towns are eerily deserted: have the residents all fled, or is there some other explanation for the depopulation? The movie includes one major special effect, a giant column of smoke wreathing around a glowing green core rising from the desert. A news report, broadcast in a now-deserted store, indicates that the source of all the strangeness appears to be linked to certain vague “presences.” Are the visitors aliens from outer space, or are they supernatural beings, angels or djinn? The script is studiously ambiguous on this point, requiring viewers to make their own judgements.

The film’s Islamic approach to mysticism is refreshing, and, in the end, undogmatic. A bitter, but honest, atheistic Berber is one of the most sympathetic characters. Another passing character caught in the maelstrom stresses that God is “elusive, like a black ant on a black stone on a dark night.” Alaoui stages a midpoint psychedelic sequence simply and effectively through a combination of ecstatic cinematography, double exposures, and trancelike music layered with the sounds of whispers and gently bleating sheep.

Technically, Animalia is advanced, especially for a modestly budgeted affair from first-time1 feature maker Alaoui. In only her second film performance, Oumaima Barid astounds, carrying the film, making Itto far more resourceful and resilient than she initially seems. The bleak but majestic Atlas mountains are beautifully photographed by cinematographer Noé Bach, with the dusty location lending a Mad Max ambiance to the pre-post-apocalyptic tale. Despite all this excellence, the slow pace and ambiguity ensure that only art-house aficionados need apply; this is one of those movies that polarizes awestruck critics and uncomprehending general audiences. But if you get on this film’s wavelength it might mesmerize you: thinking of Alaoui as a feminist, Muslim Tarkovsky is not a completely out-there comparison.

Animalia is many things: a drama about a woman in peril, a critique of modern Moroccan society, a science fictional fantasia about the end of the world, a spiritual meditation. And yet, I think of it primarily as an existential story. No matter where Itto goes, something separates her from others: she’s poor to the rich, rich to the poor, always caught in-between. Animalia is about the forces that separate people, and how they nevertheless find ways to connect despite being ultimately alone in a universe that’s impossible to fully comprehend.

Animalia is currently playing in art-house theaters, and available from some on-demand providers (see below.)

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“An increasingly surreal, even psychedelic journey with strong elements of socioeconomic and religious critique, this very accomplished movie packs a lot into just 90 minutes—it is, in every sense, a trip.”–Dennis Havey, “48 Hills” (festival screening)

  1. The scenario is basically an expansion of her 2019 short “So What If the Goats Die,” which we once featured as a Saturday Short but which has unfortunately been since blocked from general viewing. ↩︎
Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: MICKEY ONE (1965)

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DIRECTED BY: Arthur Penn

FEATURING: , , Hurd Hatfield, Teddy Hart, Franchot Tone

PLOT: A small-time comedian in Detroit runs afoul of the mob and skips town, but remains drawn to the stage—and his longing for the spotlight finds him risking unwanted attention from his pursuers.

Still from mickey one (1965)

COMMENTS: A turning point in the annals of American cinema came when Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn teamed up to apply the iconoclastic stylings of the movement to a classic crime story of a protagonist on the run from a relentless pursuer. That legendary collaboration, of course, is Bonnie and Clyde. Which makes it interesting to discover that landmark film actually represents a second bite at the apple. Before Bonnie and Clyde could run, Mickey One had to crawl.

Ostensibly about a comic on the run from the mob, Mickey One is deeply uninterested in the details of its plot. (Beatty is never told explicitly what he’s done wrong, and his attempts to buy his way out of his troubles are not so much rejected as ignored.) Instead, we open with a montage of Beatty’s high-flying comedian living the high life, and then immediately descend into full-blown paranoia. He sets fire to all his identification, rips the satin piping off his tuxedo pants, grabs a seat in hobo first-class on the next train out of town, and quickly submerges himself in a series of the lowest-level jobs he can find, assuming the name that gives the film its title. 

At this point, Mickey One seems to be a story of a confident man forced to become weak but unable to pull it off. His fear is genuine; he immediately dashes out of a restaurant the moment he hears it might have mob connections, and he regards anyone who tries to interact with him with disgust and anger. And yet, watching his fellow hacks at the mic, he can’t deny the call of the limelight, and so he tries to walk the line between satisfying his need to perform and desperately trying to avoid sending up a signal flare to his pursuers. Trying to balance these contrary impulses is destroying him, and that’s the character study we’re here for. Beatty is all jittery energy and barely contained rage; he never really demonstrates any actual comic ability (a complaint Beatty lodged throughout the production), but he’s got the loose rhythms and the nervous energy of James Dean or young Paul Newman, never sitting still and chewing on his words like gum. He’s all exposed wiring.

But there’s a turning point when the film suddenly becomes about something else. In a tense sequence, Mickey is maneuvered into auditioning for an unseen impresario, a scratchy voice barking out orders from behind the harshest spotlight ever aimed at a stage. Mickey is utterly terrified that whoever it is in the darkness will end him permanently, but everyone else—his girlfriend, his agent, a persistent booker—all seem equally terrified of their fate if he doesn’t perform. And that’s when it starts to feel like Mickey One is an allegory. We’ve been treated to metaphor throughout the film. Car crushers devour tons of metal on the outskirts of town. The booking agent (played by Hatfield, who I can only describe as a poor man’s James Olson) has an office that’s entirely white and seemingly decorated exclusively in glass. Benevolent societies sing at street corners about the coming judgment day, while a street artist makes enormous mechanical constructions that are destroyed by the authorities at the merest hint of a malfunction. And then there are the voices, speaking to Mickey from behind blinding lights and through faceless cameras. It all hints at meaning something bigger, but this is the moment when Beatty seems to be dueling with nothing less than God itself. Small wonder that he would run at the first opportunity.

Mickey One feels like an ancestor to any number of future Warren Beatty showcases: the overconfidence of Shampoo, the raw paranoia of The Parallax View, the collision of crime and entertainment in Bugsy. And that’s no small accomplishment, to be a rough draft of a style of filmmaking and a type of character study that will be accomplished more successfully down the line. But it ends up being more of an augury than a film that stands on its own. In that sense, the film is very much like its hero in the final scene: eager to put on a show, but exposed to the elements and fearful of the reception that is destined to come.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“With its surrealistic, Felliniesque presence, ‘Mickey One’ is a stunning piece.”–Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle (1995 revival)

(This movie was nominated for review by Steve Mobia. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Mickey One

Mickey One
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