The End (2012)

Naturalistic acting, lovely cinematography, nicely understated style, good music, well directed. I didn't know what to expect when I chose this on a whim, and was pleased to find myself engrossed.Subtitles - some people are prejudiced against subtitles but you soon get used to them. It opens up a new world of film: great films you'd never see otherwise, and better in the original than any second-hand Hollywood remake. Also, you never wonder what is being said during action or mumbling - it's all there!Ending - SPOILERS! Some people seemed confused by it, and it is open to interpretation, but here's my take on it. We see a big explosion at the start, maybe an ancient supernova in Sirius. It brings to mind the big bang theory - part of which is questions about what happened before. Many believe in a cycle of expansion and contraction, all matter eventually pulled back to collide and bounce back in a new big bang. So endings are also beginnings (one message of the film). At the end it is proposed that god has died; that the world-despoiling humans have no real purpose but as a beloved experiment of a god. With god's death we fade away, at the point when we realise we are alone and despair (pay attention to each disappearance). Note that non-humans in the film don't usually seem to be alone - flocks of birds, packs of dogs, goats, two vultures, lambs. However, the supernova is representative of the death of a god, but there are other stars, maybe a new god takes over, starts again. One man, one woman called Eve, in an unpopulated Eden. The EMP at the start serves one purpose as a red herring (has there been a nuclear bomb attack?), keeping you guessing about the type of film it is, but also serves to wipe out electronic technology, wipe the slate, create a simpler world in which to start again. Anyway, just some thought, I'm sure the original novel is well worth reading to find out more. Oh, if the supernova was a god dying it is interesting that we repeatedly see stopped clocks, beyond the point where it gives the viewer information - it has to tie in to Auden's Stop The Clocks funereal poem (which also mentions phones not working, planes, oceans, and stars going out).

I watched this film with English subtitles, so I may have missed some of the subtleties in the original Spanish. However, I don't feel that the film suffered in any way.A group of friends gather for a weekend to renew 'friendships' from 20 years ago, and the reunion isn't going well - if someone stripped naked and threw their clothes on the bonfire I'd be thinking it was time everyone went to bed. Just before the party disintegrates there's a loud noise, strange lights in the sky and everything stops working, everything.With no power, so no lights and no phones, everyone goes to bed. In the morning there is one person missing. He just disappeared. The group make for the nearest town and on the way they start to disappear, one by one. Eventually we're down to the last few, and the film ends.There's no explanation for the power cuts, what the lights were, why people are disappearing, why the people are disappearing in the order they are, why only people are disappearing and not birds and animals and why most people disappear when nobody is looking at them. There's no explanation at all. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.With the lack of explanation, all you're left with is the journey, and I did find some of the journey interesting. I wasn't that interested in the interactions of the characters and, as usual, I'm glad some of them disappeared. I think I detected a pattern as to the order people disappeared in, but some people vanished in the night, so I'm not entirely sure. As the dwindling group move from their holiday home across a gorge and towards the nearest town there are some good moments: a vulture makes an unexpected appearance and death by goats is a novelty I wasn't expecting.Sadly, with no explanation, and no real ending, the film is a complete let down. However, until the very end I found the film worth watching, with moments of slowly-building tension, the unexplained disappearances to fathom out, and some great scenery to watch. However, when you get to the end and nothing is explained, watching the film just becomes a very flat experience.This is the way the film ends, not with a bang but a whimper.

After twenty years, Sara (Carmen Ruiz) invites her friends to reunite again in the same isolated cabin where they met for the last time. Félix (Daniel Grao) goes with the younger escort Eva (Clara Lago) posing of his girlfriend; his ex-girlfriend Maribel (Maribel Verdú) leaves her two children with her mother and travels with her husband Rafa (Antonio Garrido); the wolf Hugo (Andrés Velencoso) travels with his wife Cova (Blanca Romero); the lonely pothead Sergio (Miquel Fernández) travels alone. Sara is worried since their friend Ángel "Prophet" (Eugenio Mira) has not arrived yet. There is a secret about something that happened twenty years ago with the prophet that was the reason to keep them apart.During the night, the group is around a bonfire and Ángel never shows up, and Sara discloses that it was Ángel's idea to gather his friends on that day. Out of the blue, there is a lighting followed by thunder and all the power is cut – batteries of cellular have run down; the cars have flat batteries and the group argues. Soon Eva learns that twenty years ago, Ángel was forced to consume drugs that have seriously affected him. He became violent and started to foresee the end of the world, ending in an asylum. None of his friends but Sara has ever visited him in the institution, and they first believe that Ángel has plotted an evil scheme against them. One the next morning, Rafa vanishes and they believe he has walked to the nearby town and the group decides to do the same. But soon, each one of them disappears in the end of the days."Fin" is an intriguing and very well acted Spanish thriller, with Maribel Verdú that is one of my favorite Spanish actresses and the unknown Clara Lago, one of the most beautiful new faces in the cinema industry. Unfortunately, the pointless conclusion gave me the same sensation I had when "Lost" ended. The writers succeeded in creating the engaging mystery but without any answer to the events but the simplistic explanation of the apocalyptic end of the world, with Eva apparently surviving. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Fim dos Tempos" ("End of the Times")

Sci-fi involves science in its fiction. This movie didn't show me any ~ I'd have to call it a fantasy, a whole different genre where anything can happen. Like, "poof" people disappear or drawings from the future. That aside, I really wasn't knocked out by this fantasy movie. The acting was fine, but it was lacking in forward motion and suspense, unless you call suspense wondering what the end will be. Last night I watched Christian Bales' "The Machinist" and was nearly on the edge of my seat from scene one. There was dramatic tension sorely lacking in Fin. And then they sailed off into the sunset .. er, fog. Into nothingness? The rapture? A new world to repopulate? (Eva? I'm surprised her lousy boyfriend wasn't named Adam...) "Melancholia" did it all much better.