Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The Last Days (Los Ultimos Dias)

Regular readers know I have a softspot for science fiction.  Film makers can discuss all kinds of issues, without judgement or blowback, by setting the story in the future or on some distant planet.  This Spanish film carries on the tradition.
The Last Days
The Last Days is a story of love and the force for personal change and growth that care for another person can bring forth.  But this film uses the end of society as the way to mask the philosophy as an action story.  Set in Barcelona, The Last Days tells us of a disease that overtakes the people of Earth.  Slowly at first everyone on the planet becomes agoraphobic.  They are afraid of going outside.  Deathly afraid.  Every person on Earth stays wherever they are; unable to leave the building.  If they go outside they die from fear/seizures.  Like a massive panic attack that stops your heart.  So everyone is trapped inside buildings afraid of nature and the outside world.

We follow the hope of Marc.  Marc is a computer programmer in search of his girlfriend.  He has been trapped for months in his office building, but they have broken through to the subway underneath the building.  He leaves the safety of his temporary home in search of his love Julia.

Marc blackmails a co-worker, Enrique, into helping him on his search.  They travel through the broken society that is the future.  Along the way we learn Marc's hopes and fears, but his only focus is finding Julia. I shall leave out the specific details, but writer/directors David and Alex Pastor do a fine job with a simple plot.  I found this film to keep my interest and tell both an uplifting and thought-provoking story.

Well-paced, interestingly filmed and beautifully scored The Last Days is an interesting film.

Filmed in 2013, in Spanish with subtitles, directed and written by David and Alex Pastor, starring Quim Gutierrez, Jose Cornado and Marta Etura.