[premiere] The End

Oppenheimer is known as a documentarian, the creator of one of the most haunting documentaries in the history of cinema, The Act of Killing. The End of the World is his first feature film, a recently released "atypical musical" where the main characters are trapped in a luxurious bunker after the apocalypse. The leading roles are played by Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, and George MacKay.

In The Act of Killing, Oppenheimer invited Indonesian killers, who carried out a genocide of communists in the 1960s, to reenact scenes of their favorite murders. In The End of the World, Oppenheimer combines theatricality with the impossibility of forgiveness and the realization of one's complicity in a universal tragedy. Overwhelmed by an all-consuming hopelessness, the characters begin to sing in a variety of tones and timbres.

The film did not make it to Cannes or Venice and received mixed reviews from critics. Well, that just means we’ll have to figure out for ourselves whether the director succeeded in his experiment with a new genre.