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6.6/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.6/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Autour de la fin du monde remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you are the kind of person who likes looking at old photos of construction sites or messy desks, you will probably like this. It is a short, silent look at a film set from 1931.
If you need a story or characters who talk, stay far away. You will be bored in about three minutes. 😶
Eugene Deslaw was there to capture Abel Gance making his big disaster movie. It does not feel like a polished documentary. It feels like someone snuck a camera in and started filming whatever looked interesting.
The first thing you notice is the smoke. There is so much smoke and dust everywhere. People are just walking through it like it is totally normal. I wonder if their lungs hurt after the shoot.
Abel Gance looks like he has not slept in three days. He is wearing this big coat and holding a megaphone. He looks very intense, maybe a little bit scary.
There are these massive wooden structures that look like they might fall over at any second. It is not like a modern set where everything looks safe and industrial. This looks like a construction zone in a fever dream.
I love the shots of the cameras. They are these huge, clunky boxes. It takes like three guys just to move one of them. You can see the sweat on their faces when they have to shift things around.
There is a shot of a giant globe or some kind of scientific prop. It looks very expensive but also very fragile. The way the light hits the metal is actually quite beautiful, even if the film grain is heavy.
The best parts are the extras. There are hundreds of them. They are all wearing these 1930s clothes, standing around waiting for someone to tell them what to do. Some of them look genuinely confused.
One guy in the background is just staring at the camera for a second too long. He has this look like he is wondering if he is going to get paid. It is a tiny moment, but it makes the whole thing feel real.
The way the film is edited is a bit jumpy. Deslaw was an experimental guy, so he does not care about smooth transitions. He just cuts from a face to a wheel to a light bulb.
It is weirdly refreshing to see a movie set look so disorganized. We are used to seeing behind-the-scenes stuff that is basically a commercial for the movie. This is just a recording of hard work.
It reminds me a bit of the raw energy in The Branded Four, where everything feels a bit more dangerous than it probably should. You can feel the heat from the big studio lights just by looking at the screen.
The silence actually helps. You focus more on the hands of the technicians. You see how they twist the dials and pull the cables. It is like watching a giant clock being built from the inside.
It ends pretty abruptly. I wanted to see more of the actual filming, but Deslaw seemed more interested in the machinery of it all. Which is fine, I guess.
It is a bit of a mess, but a good mess. It is a ghost of a movie set. 👻
Check it out if you want to see what a genius looks like when he is probably about to have a nervous breakdown over a lighting rig.
IMDb 6.1
1916
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