The fact that it’sa movie musicalin that kind of space is even more telling as a result.
Why did you feel that was the right way to approachThe End?
It’s a false hope.
Joshua Oppenheimer: That false hope is the source, it’s the film’s entire form.
The characters sing out of that.
When the characters sing, crisis has caused it or what truth has caused it?
Custom image by Simone Ashmoore
It’s about trying to cobble together illusions.
We’re watching illusions being built, rather than escaping into an illusion.
As a creative, what do you find so compelling and interesting about those lies we tell ourselves?
A wealthy family lives in isolation within a luxurious bunker, unaware of the world beyond their walls. When a mysterious girl arrives at their doorstep, her presence threatens to unravel the delicate balance of their secluded existence, leading to a tense exploration of trust, survival, and buried secrets.
Joshua Oppenheimer: Well, there’s a friction.
In the latter, it’s people [like Anwar Congo] dramatizing their memories of genocide.
Those dramatizations are never just presented as kind of glorious films.
It’s the cracks that we’re really looking for.
It’s the same here.
Those melodies contain not the truth, but lies.
And it’s only when they hit the wall of truth and stop singing that the truth screams through.
That’s in the silence, when they hit a wall and they stop singing and they fall silent.
That’s where the truth screams through, and that’s the same as in theAct of Killing.
It is just a deeper version of it."
Screen Rant: What would you say was the biggest surprise you encountered during production onThe End?
Not just principal crew, like my cinematographer Mikhail Krichman or my composer Joshua Schmidt.
The choreographers, production designer, but also, of course the cast.
But they know what it’s like to actually be this character.
What is the truth of that in your experience?'
Maybe I’m wrong.
It’s that vision at each stage in the process only takes me so far.
It gives me the direction to take the next step.
Like, I’ll continue in that way.
I wouldn’t say the film is not how I imagined it.
It is just a deeper version of it.
