La Fin Absolue du Monde
| |
| Directed By | Hans Backovic |
| Produced By | Kathleen Emery |
| Written By | Hans Backovic |
| Starring | Julie Montreux Francois Kelvin Meiro Kier |
| Music By | Bertrand Noel |
| Cinematography | Patton League |
| Edited By | Hans Backovic Patton League |
| Production Company | Backovic Productions |
| Distributed By | Backovic Productions |
| Release Date | xxxxxxxxxxx |
| Running Time | 1 hour |
| Language | Common Tongue |
| Budget | 100,000 Laurels |
| Box Office | 5,175,000 Laurels |
La Fin Absolue du Monde is a 1658 AN Caputian horror film directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by Hans Backovic.
Upon its release, La Fin Absolue du Monde achieved critical and commercial success.
Synopsis
Deeply in debt to the father of his late wife, rare-films dealer Arden Sherburne has less than a month to produce 200,000 Laurels in order to keep his small theater afloat. He is hired by an old cinephile, Mr. Barnett, to find the only existing print of a rare 30-year-old movie titled, La Fin Absolue du Monde. The film supposedly has supernatural power to anyone who views it which led to a homicidal riot during its premiere at the Franciscania Film Festival in Alexandria decades ago, after which it was destroyed.
Barnett leads Sherburne to a hidden room in his mansion, which contains an emaciated pale man in chains. The wounds on the man's shoulders appear to be the source of a pair of angelic wings. The chained man explains that his existence is bound to the existence of the film. Barnett then offers Sherburne 100,000 Laurels to find the film, which Sherburne increases to 200,000. Sherburne begins his research and gets his first lead: a critic who wrote a review of the film. The mentally-sick critic gives Sherburne an audiotape of an interview with the film's director.
Sherburne listens to the tape and has a hallucination of his late wife in the state of her suicide. Sherburne's friend tells him that he was the projectionist at a secret screening of the film. He was spared death and insanity because he turned away from the film as it played. Eventually, he tried to stop it, but blacked out, only to wake up with his left hand burned. He sends Sherburne to a warehouse, where he meets a deranged filmmaker. Sherburne is seized, injected with an anesthetic, and blacks out, waking up tied to a chair. The filmmaker explains to Sherburne that an angel was sacrificed in the film, and the evil of that horror affects all who view the film. Sherburne experiences another vision and when he comes to, he finds himself holding the machete. The filmmaker has his throat slashed. Before the man dies, he says, "Ximena".
Sherburne tracks down and speaks with Ximena, the film director's widow. She gives Sherburne the only remaining copy of the film. When he asks how the director died, the widow reveals that he slashed his own throat, and hers as well, though not fatally in her case. Sherburne brings the film to Barnett and collects his payment. Barnett sees the mutilated angel in the film. Sherburne is informed that his father-in-law locked the theater. He receives a phone call from a distraught Barnett, and returns to the mansion. There he finds the butler, who gouges his own eyes out with a knife after watching the film. Inside, he finds the old man loading his own intestines into the reels of another projector.
Sherburne's father-in-law pulls a gun and threatens to kill him. They struggle and another cigarette burn envelopes the screen. Sherburne awakens to find both him and his father-in-law watching the movie, both bloody. The butler frees the chained angel. Sherburne's late wife appears and bites her father's neck. Sherburne wakes up, and decides that he and his father-in-law both have to die because neither can truly let her go as long as they're alive. Sherburne then brutally kills his father-in-law and commits suicide himself.
The last scene shows the angel taking the two film reels. The angel walks into the theater, looks at Sherburne's bloody corpse and says, "Thank you for this," indicating the film reels, before leaving.
Critical Reception
- Well-received in Caputia and several other markets, propelled Backovic into cult director status.
