Format: DVD from Arlington Heights Memorial Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass portable DVD player.
One of the more entertaining things about this journey is the weird little pieces of juxtaposition that happen purely by chance. Yesterday’s film was all about weird sex, and today’s film, Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle), starts with a man having sex with a blow-up doll that slowly starts deflating. This quickly expands into a bizarre post-apocalyptic vision that is shown us without explanation but that is visually fascinating nonetheless. For fans of Besson, this is where he started, and there’s plenty of evidence for how he got to where he is now.
It’s not evident immediately that we are in a post-apocalyptic world, although it becomes evident after a few minutes. As our unnamed main character (Pierre Jolivet) leaves his residence, we see not a city but a wasteland. We also notice his clothing, which looks like it’s straight out of The Road Warrior, as is the improvised weapon of our main character. A few things also become evident right away. First, everyone we see is male, which explains the blow-up doll at the start of the film. Second, no one talks. In fact, there are only two lines of dialogue in the entire film. It’s not a silent film by any stretch of the imagination, but there is no speech except for that one instance. Something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. If we needed further evidence, the rain of fish that happens in the middle section is evidence enough.
