Billionaires in a bunker: Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon’s apocalyptic musical

The family has been locked away for several decades, in a golden cage. There are paintings by the great masters, exquisite food, and luxury treatment. But in the end, it’s still a cage. On the surface, the Earth has been devastated by thousands of fires. For years, no intruder has bothered the family, which saved itself from the global catastrophe along with a group of friends who are useful because of their professions. The patriarch ran a large energy company — in other words, he is one of the people responsible for the disaster — and now he is dictating his memoirs to his children. An account aimed at whitewashing his image. And into this deadly boredom enters a survivor from the outside world.

The movie The End examines the climate disaster, toxic relationships, truth and lies, and family tragedies — but through song. It is directed by Texan filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, who is taking part in the San Sebastián Film Festival just as he turns 40, and radically changes his approach to cinema.

Oppenheimer has been nominated for two Oscars as a documentary director. The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014) both shocked audiences, confronting them with the horrors of the genocide in Indonesia. In the first documentary, Oppenheimer graphically re-enacts the violence, while in the second, he follows the family of a victim as they encounter the killers. It was such delicate material that most of the crew are down as “anonymous” in the credits.

“In reality, I never defined myself as a documentary filmmaker,” explains Oppenheimer. “The first [documentary] was born from research, and the second from a conversation with one of the protagonists of The Act of Killing. Years later, reflecting on climate change, I had an epiphany and glimpsed a way to show it to the public: with a musical.”

The filmmaker speaks quickly and gesticulates a lot. He says he is very happy with making the switch to fiction, and with the result of this effort. Not to mention the fact that Michael Shannon, Tilda Swinton, George MacKay and the rest of the cast dared to join him on this journey. “They embarked with me on this exploration, because on the journey we had to discover how to make a musical,” he says, before delving into the genre. “We have turned it on its head. In the musicals of the golden age of Hollywood, the characters sang when they wanted to tell the truth. Here it is the opposite. The gestures, the reality, show us that there is something more. The dialogues and the songs bear witness to the lies, the reality that they have created in order to survive ethically,” he says. “The family prospered in impunity, and now they get up every day rebuilding hope for the future and a narrative that justifies their actions.”

It is curious how Oppenheimer seems to return to the heart of his documentaries, which continue to speak — not only of the mass killings in Indonesia — but of how stories are constructed, about the art of narration. “We are the only animal species that lies to itself. I find it very revealing, and they experience a fact that any music fan will understand: cognitive dissonance. Reality is one thing, you see another. The only way to survive is to be honest with ourselves. The rest is born from that personal confrontation,” he explains. “Hence the magic of songs, because someone can sing one thing and even the gestures can mean another.”

In this way, Oppenheimer discusses what really interests him: global warming, the climate emergency. “I am really an optimist. For the family in the film, it is too late, of course. But for us, in 2024, it is not. Of course, we cannot cling to this false illusion of immortality of humanity. That is why I made this film, because I believe that we still have time, and I refuse to accept those apocalyptic clocks that indicate that we are in the last minute of the last hour of humanity, and there is no turning back,” he reflects.

Will the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris lead this change? “I have already voted by mail,” he says. “And yes, it could be her. Not so much because of ideology, but because of the associations that surround her on her path. I don’t believe that environmental policies will change from above, from political leaders — let’s not fool ourselves. We will have to push from below, with citizen movements united beyond ideologies. I am not an activist, it is not my profession. However, I am involved in it. Well, the rest of the world, too.”

As for his stellar cast, Oppenheimer has praise for both Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton. “Shannon has nailed the charm of the character. He is a kind of Jimmy Stewart. I am convinced that he is the typical company president who remembered the birthdays of all his secretaries and who, therefore, did not feel consciously responsible for the apocalypse, even after he had suffered it,” he says.

The director ends with the British performer: “she is the best actress in history,” he says. “And this is one of her best works: groundbreaking, radiant and heartbreaking. There is a song filmed without cuts and we did 31 takes. In each one she was digging into the heart of the character, and the last one is what we used. Tilda approaches acting from the truth.”

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