Final Cut of the Dead

One of those films where you soon realise and appreciate the 'one take' aspect but once the 'scene' had been completed, it really takes-off big time.

I couldn't stop laughing - giggles and the belly sort - when all is made clear. The only language I have is English (at a push) so the subtitles were imperative. All the actors threw themselves whole-heartedly into the mayhem with the initial commissioning to the rehearsals then the actual filming of the film all made glorious sense!

Goodness knows how long it took.

Getting passed the first 30mins turns into another movie entirely and the viewer is amply rewarded.

This could have been quite a funny spoof on all things zombie, if only it were just twenty minutes or so shorter! It all centres around a production team making a (very) cheap and cheerful film full of fake limbs, tomato ketchup and singularly bad acting. Acting rivalries and romantic affairs are causing director "Rémi" (Romain Duris) no end of problems as the money and time start running out. Just when things look like they could get little worse, it appears that they have managed to awaken a few "real" zombies and so things become seriously perilous (and messy) for all concerned. The latter part of the movie seems to have two functions - to explain just why the first half hour was so terrible and to then suggest that with some Japanese creative intervention - they all take on Japanese names and get some of their funding - the film gets magically better. Sadly, it labours that joke just once too often. The parody elements run out of steam and it becomes rather a puerile and unfunny slapstick-style enterprise with some bad actors portraying other truly bad actors. The last ten minutes of continuous filming of their filming of the fight against the axe-wielding undead is still quite funny, but by then I was starting to shift in my chair. It does have it's funny moments - but just nowhere near enough of them.

I must admit that I did not have the greatest expectations for this because it is a remake of a Japanese film - One Cut of the Dead - so recent and with such quality. Still, in order not to have too many spare hours in my day, I decided to watch it. The story doesn't change much. A production team shoots a movie about zombies and then they start being attacked by zombies but... that's also part of the movie. Anyone who has seen the original knows that this ends up working well, being basically a comedy - with meaning and social messages included - about doing a lot with little in cinema. The film seeks to bring something new to the table, by using the original film, making it part of the same universe, which ends up encapsulating some of the novelties and more comical scenes of this remake, but still fails, as it replicates too many scenes that are not the film within the film, which ends up making little sense (for example, the director's motivations, his career, the various behind-the-scenes conversations...).

As in the original (which I loved much more on a rewatch), the first act is weird and doesn't work that well, but that's where the fun begins. The range of actors - which even includes the same actress playing the same character as in the original! - does an excellent job and it is clear that this is also a more expensive production than the Japanese one (which makes us wonder if it will go against the spirit of the original...?).

I confess that I don't quite understand why a renowned director - like Michel Hazanavicius - decides to make a remake of an acclaimed film that is only five years old. However, the truth is that Final Cut is quite funny. I would say just as or even funnier than the original. It is, even so - and despite trying some innovation by incorporating the first film into its universe - too close to the original in 80% of the scenes, so the advantage has to be given to the film that gave us something innovative.

A movie within the movie, within the movie... At first it was supposed to be titled Z - like Zombies - but the idea was abandoned because the meaning Z related to Russian army in Ukraine war, the atrocities...So they changed the title. It is brilliant, intelligent, unusual, adapted from a short movie, but for me it was a bit too complex to follow. I was unable to summarize it to myself. The movie takes place in an abandoned gigantic movie theater complex facility, the perfect setting for a film about movies making. As DAWN OF THE DEAD took place in a gigantic commercial center, the perfect setting for a horror film ciriticizing the consumerism American way of life. It is a comedy but, I repeat, worth for the screenplay. It is only a bit too confused for someone like myself. The connection to Russia is certianly not Z, for the reasons explained above, but the movie within the movie evokes the Russian Matryoshka wooden dolls, dolls within dolls.... And strangely, Romain Duris played in LES POUPEES RUSSES - Russian Dolls - back in 2005.

Fun, smart, great actors. After "the Artist" and "la classe americaine", Michel Hazanavicius pay once again tribute to cinema, with honesty, talent and all his wit.