It's Only the End of the World (2016)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Juste la fin du monde is a play that enjoyed a great deal of success in the 1990's while the AIDS epidemic was still raging. A mother and her two sons and daughter settle down to a long day of anger and recrimination as her eldest son Louis returns to the family home after a long absence. So long an absence that he doesn't recognize his sister-in-law Catherine, while his brother sulks and spouts insults towards everyone. The film version makes what I believe is a grave error in casting: Vincent Cassel, 50ish, plays Antoine who is the elder brother here. Since Cassel is almost 20 years older than Gaspard Ulliel (Louis), and since the first born son is usually the one favoured by his mother, it doesn't make much sense to have Antoine bitching about his brother's supposed advantages in life. Louis should be the one vehemently protesting the raw deal he got in life.If birth order is of no concern to you, I'd like to say that Nathalie Baye gives another superb performance as the mother. She's a gold standard now among French actresses. Lea Seydoux does well as the confused, lonely Suzanne. Cassel and Ulliel do the best they can with their parts.

(Flash Review)The film's plot slowly unpeels like an onion. Where a man returns home to his family after a 12 year absence. There is a brief statement early on about why he decides to return but when or will he find an opportune time to tell his family during his family's constant bickering, snarky comments and yelling? This film is dialog driven but one must read in between the dialog to interpret the true meaning all of which is moderately open to interpretation. It is a slow burn with effective cinematography with long shot holds and communicative music score. So if you are up for a French drama with a family poor at communication yet like to ponder emotional meaning, then this is for you.

I just watched the Xavier Dolan film: "Juste la fin du monde". It is strange one...in the good sense of "stange"! The main character is a guy who come back home after 12 years absence to announce for his inevitable death to the family. What he is dying from, why he has left home in the first place...so many questions and so little answers. The whole movie has an atmosphere of something ...something from the past. Like a puzzle Dolan gives to the audience piece by piece the parts of the story, and at the end you being left full with questions and with one feeling of inevitability. The family is strange and in the same time so ordinary. The characters are very complicated - they don't know what to say or do, they are wavering over every possible feelings, they are terrified from the reality, they got angry at each other and to the world at the same time, deeply unhappy, each of them stuck into his/ hers personal hell... And actually it is an amazing film. I highly recommend it to all fans of European cinema.

Watching this movie was like looking into the eyes of the Van Gogh portraits painted during the years right before his death. It is extremely rare for a film to capture emotions that are so subtle but deep, this clearly isn't going to be a mainstream film since not everyone are capable of those feelings. The film reminded me of the limitations and frustrations of the human experience, that those moments of ecstatic happiness from the past often haunts us with sense of loss, even the things which seemed to be insignificant or immaterial at the time brings a nostalgic feeling when we realise we are not immortal. The characters clearly deeply care for each other, but the limitation of their personalities or a life time of habits (the marks of Antonie's hands or how Catherine constantly looks at Antonie from the fear or triggering his anger) leaving them unable to connect or have a full relationship with each other. This reminds me how we are constantly reacting and reflects the limitations of the human expression and relationships. Louis's sensitivity as he tells his brother the details about his feelings as he travels through the airport was a contrast to his brother's reaction, the lack of empathy from Antoine was not deliberate but a fact, it is not hard to see why Louis stayed away from people/place where he was never understood. The irony is they are family. The scene where Louis leans on the mattress where the scent/dust of the mattress triggers a trip down the memory lane was quite special for me. It represented how the sensitive the human mind is and memories are triggered by the most subtle senses but when we take those trips down the memory lane we are all alone instead of an experience shared between two people. Especially when Louis later learns from Antonie that Pierre has passed away. The actors/actresses are absolutely brilliant and without them the art wouldn't be brought to life.The movie left me feeling sad but nevertheless it's a brilliant piece of art work.