The End

After the destruction of Earth, a wealthy family has withdrawn with its servants to an old salt mine deep underground. But the bunker’s luxurious furnishings and the priceless artworks on the walls don’t really conceal the bleak nature of the habitation. Still the family lives its life in a state of repression – and suppression, never talking about its own part in the apocalypse 30 years ago. Sudden musical numbers give voice to the otherwise unspoken. And the grown son, who has never seen the outside world, uses song to express his love for a young woman who recently sought shelter in the mine and whom the parents initially perceived as a threat to their putative idyll. In his documentaries, $The Act of Killing% and $The Look of Silence%, director Joshua Oppenheimer explored the darker aspects of human nature. His narrative debut is a wacky genre mash-up with an A-list cast, a mixture of classic Hollywood musical, dystopian fable, and family drama.