Denmark-based director Joshua Oppenheimer breaks down his Tilda Swinton-starring end of the world musical, The End, including its very specific origins and that curly wig
An end-of-the-world film about a family forced to live in a bunker after the planet has been ravaged by climate change can hit a little close to home. But The End, which is directed by two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, has a surrealistic twist: it’s a musical. “It’s ultimately a film about self-deception – about the lies we tell ourselves. The cliché about musicals is that characters sing when the truth they need to express is too big to be contained by speech, so they burst into song,” says Oppenheimer. “In a way, the opposite is true here. What gets characters singing in The End are crises of doubt, and they sing as they come up with new lies.”
The film centres around a wealthy, nameless nuclear family portrayed by Tilda Swinton (mother), Michael Shannon (father) and George MacKay (son) whose carefully-curated world is rocked when an unexpected visitor lands on their subterranean doorstep. This is no ordinary bunker. Nestled in a salt mine (Oppenheimer visited 15 mines all over Europe to find the perfect one), it’s the Rolls Royce of doomsday living, featuring a full-sized pool and priceless art collection. “There’s something Nordic about that icy, craggy landscape,” says Oppenheimer of the bunker. “But it’s actually salt, not ice.”