The Desperate End

In Kyrgyzstan, a married couple run down to the basement for shelter when it is announced on the news channels that nuclear war has broken out and everyone has been targeted, with the bombs about to land on Bishkek in fifteen minutes time.

 

Diana (Umotaaly), is busy making lunch for herself in the kitchen. She’s a bit distracted, listening to music on her headphones while she’s cooking, and doesn’t hear the news coming from the telly that nuclear war has broken out all over the planet. Almaz (Izrailov), on the other hand, is in the middle of the city when the news breaks, and has to deal with the rising panic on the streets as well as the military presence in the air, as he tries his hardest to get back to the one he loves. After a frantic drive through town, Almaz and Diana reunite with just enough time to get themselves down to the basement, where they can wait out the inevitable fallout together.

 

Once down in the basement, however, things get even more tense as Almaz takes the opportunity of the world ending to relieve himself of some of the burden of guilt he has been feeling over the past wee while. His guilt relates to the gambling that he has been getting himself into recently, as well as the actions he has taken to keep himself afloat at the casino after all of his losses. This outpouring of guilt takes Diana by surprise, and after a lengthy bout of wailing and gnashing at each other, she decides the only course of action is to reveal a secret of her own concerning a girls’ holiday that she took earlier on in the year. As the countdown to the end of the world nears zero, the two former lovers hash out their relationship issues with each other and turn their last fifteen minutes together into the worst fifteen minutes of their lives.

 

As you might have gathered, everything in The Desperate End is rooted firmly in the extremes of melodrama. The relationship issues that are being aired by the couple are something that would make Dynasty or any cheap Mexican soap blush, but what makes them so ridiculously over-the-top is the fact that both characters thought that now was a good time to get them out. If all you had was fifteen minutes left with the one you loved, would you really take that time to unburden yourself of guilt and make them miserable with your truths? Couple this then, with the fact that a gun suddenly appears from nowhere, for no reason and with no explanation, and you can see that writer/producer Robin A Townsend is basically trying to stuff as much padded tension into his story as he can muster, without really giving much of a thought as to why it has to be there.

 

Consistency is also an issue with Townsend’s script, as the characters swing about all over the place in terms of their emotion and attachment to each other: They love each other, they hate each other, they love each other, they hate each other, they’d do anything for each other, they just want to hurt each other, they want to forgive each other, one of them’s dead. It’s all completely farcical and makes no sense in terms of characterisation or narrative as it’s all so unbelievable.

 

Then there’s the fact that nobody else is in the basement with them – we can hear them in the halls and the stairwell – but right until the last moments nobody else seems to want to take shelter in the pretty massive basement at the bottom of the apartment block. The military presence, too, and the government response to the threat makes no sense in the end, when the rug is inevitably pulled from under us. Given the explanation we receive for the entire narrative, why there would be military helicopters overhead in urban areas, is anyone’s guess.

 

All of this is a real shame for The Desperate End, because in terms of getting the shots of panic in the streets, as well as the unnecessary military presence, director Narboto Anarbaev does an excellent job. Some of the shots on the streets are truly striking, it’s just a shame that in the end they don’t make much sense, and for the rest of the film we are stuck down in a dark basement with two nonsensical characters trying to carry a story that doesn’t exist. Both leads are very committed to their roles, bringing the melodrama to their lines and their faces as best they can as they try to make the script make sense, but in the end their talents are wasted as it’s just too difficult to care about something that was so unnecessary to begin with.

 

The Desperate End looks good and is a fine example of technical filmmaking, especially considering Townsend deliberately chose to make his film in Kyrgyzstan, which caused all sorts of logistical issues. Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the narrative or characterisation which makes sense and the film really suffers for that. Townsend believes that optioning this short as a first instalment in an anthology around the same circumstances, is a good idea, however, with The Desperate End coming out so poorly, it may be best that he play to his strengths in producing and either offer writing duties to someone else for the time being, or take some time out first to sharpen his skills in that area, if he really intends on making more like this.