52 Films by Women Vol 4. 42. ENDZEIT (Ever After) (Director: Carolina Hellsgård)
How should you prepare for a zombie apocalypse? First, paint
your fingernails black. It does not serve a practical purpose, but it takes
your mind off it, you know. Second, get rid of those flip flops. You can’t be
fleeing from some ten mile an hour zombie in those things. Plus they are hardly
all-terrain. Third, if you have to vanquish one of the undead, put a cloth over
its head first so when you bash its head in with a spade or some other garden
utensil – no, not the plastic chair, did you really think that would work – you
don’t have to look at its collapsed skull.
Adapted by Olivia Vieweg from her 2012 graphic novel, Endzeit
(Ever After, though the title better suggests ‘the end of time’ or ‘end game’)
is the first female directed zombie film in a crowded genre. It has a money
shot: tens of zombies swarming across a bridge near a reservoir pursuing our
two heroines, Vivi (Gro Swantje Kohlhof), who hasn’t got over the fact that she
didn’t get her kid sister out of the outdoor pool when the zombies struck, and
Eva (Maja Lehrer), a hard-as-black-fingernails ‘get stuff done’ type of young
woman with a pain in her stomach. (Given the similarity in name, you wonder
whether Vivi is the author Vieweg’s surrogate.)
Endzeit isn’t the first female-led zombie apocalypse film –
that would be Resident Evil, the film version of a video game that inspired
many sequels. It does not adhere to the delights of the genre, which is to say
it is neither a guns and splatter shoot ‘em up, nor isn’t a relentless suspense
filled drama. Directed by Carolina Hellsgård, and featuring Trine Dyrholm in a pivotal, or
should I say divotal supporting role as the Gardener – she has some weeds
growing out the side of her face that are more visually arresting than a
unibrow (a divot is the bump of a cricket field that has to be flattened out) –
it is a road movie of sorts with an ecological message. Mankind are bad tenants
who haven’t paid the rent for a while and now must be kicked out.
Not every zombie apocalypse film begins with a handy
explanatory caption, but this one does. An outbreak has confined survivors to
two German cities: Weimar, where
they fight off the zombies, having built a wire fence and Jena where they are searching for a cure. Weimar is filled with
statues that are lit from above with crude spotlights, otherwise they would be
cycling hazards – and why are there no mountain bikes in zombie apocalypse
movies? You would have thought with the loss of fuel and electricity
generation, the survivors would cycle between cities rather than use an
automated train that is supposed to carry only supplies. Besides, have you ever
seen a zombie on a bicycle? Not very good with hand signals. Actually, I may have
seen a few, cutting through red lights while I was crossing the road.
Vivi resides in a mental institution, a fortified building
designed to keep people in. She is plagued by flashbacks and recites to herself
a childish rhyme in which there is no place for everyone else. As a suggestion,
she dyes her hair, which makes her easy to spot in a crowd – or easy to
substitute in an action scene. She is bored and asks to work on the fence,
which requires frequent boarding up.
There she meets Eva, who gives her a dismissive look (‘we’re
down to the weaklings’) and some tools. This suggests that Vivi has a
particular set of skills and she does, fixing (stolen) cameras to sell on eBay.
Remember eBay? There is a sigh when this comes up in conversation, for
something recalled with the same affection as avocado toast. No sooner does
Vivi get to work than there is an attack on her entirely expendable co-worker,
who is bitten. Eva hacks off the girl’s arm, but the older supervisor wants her
to go further. In a matter of fact way, Eva shoots the girl, while Vivi cowers
by the fence. Careful, you think to yourself, there was an attack there.
Vivi can’t stay. Clearly the camp hasn’t earned a
safety-at-work certificate. So she slips out to catch the unmanned train that
goes between two cities, begging the question: if she can leave Weimar
undetected, how easy must it be for the zombies to gain entry? ‘We’re down to
the undead,’ Eva might say with a resigned sigh as she hands out more tools.
‘Wait a minute – how did you get in?’
Vivi isn’t the only woman on the unmanned train – Eva is
there too. Then something exceptional happens. The train breaks down. Well,
unexceptional if you have ever used Southern Rail in the United Kingdom, where
in all likelihood they would account for cancellations owing to zombies on the
track.
Eva has a bottle of water but she won’t share. Vivi is
encouraged to use the train’s toilet. An unmanned train has a restroom? ‘Have
you heard about the toilet zombie?’ Eva asks with relish. I have: they stuff
sanitary products into the toilet bowl. Vivi is scared to open the door. When
she does so (needs must), she makes a surprising discovery (un-spoiler alert:
it is a butterfly farm).
Eva’s reconnaissance trip to inspect an abandoned van
reveals some zombies in the back – how did they get lured there? There is a
running trope of zombies behind locked doors as if that is the most humane way
of dealing with them. We get some backstory. Eva carries around a broken camera
and wanted to study photography. She was about to leave for the United States
when the outbreak took place. Vivi fixes her camera and its selfie time, which
is exactly what you would do when you are short of food: think about your
status update. (At this point, writing
the review, I started thinking about a Facebook page for the undead, with ‘feed
me’ requests. Not so different from the real thing.)
Hellsgård’s film has production values, or at least CGI. At
one point, Eva and Vivi see a pair of giraffes. ‘They must have escaped from
the zoo,’ Eva observes. I thought they were native to the German countryside.
This trope is lifted from Terry Gilliam’s film, 12 Monkeys, two of Bruce
Willis’ finest hours - but how did we know at the time? The point Hellsgård
makes is that once mankind stops exploiting the land, animals can reclaim it.
Now if I were Eva or Vivi, I might hitch a lift of the said
giraffes. I mean, who has seen that in a zombie apocalypse movie? It would
certainly save on shoe leather. At a certain point, Eva and Vivi start annoying
each other, even when Eva saves her at one point. They fight and Vivi pushes
Eva into a lake where she makes the acquaintance of sea zombies, who have an
amazing ability to breathe underwater. That’s a bit steep of Vivi, I thought.
Right after they had eaten cucumbers together too.
Once backstories are exchanged, there is the inevitable
breaking of the fellowship and Vivi’s attempt to kill herself with a gun with
no bullets. ‘If you have the courage to do that, you might as well come with
me,’ says the Gardener, who is some sort of evolved human being, fully at one
with nature.
The pleasures of Endzeit are fairly limited. There
aren’t any big surprises and the film doesn’t transcend the limits of the
zombie genre. It ends with a walk into the sunset, illustrating the motto,
‘it’s not the destination but the journey that matters,’ another excuse given by
Southern Rail. There is the novelty of a film with only one male speaking part
– an old guy who encourages Vivi to follow her dreams (in a manner of
speaking). The other men are zombies who roar or groan. The film positions
women as the gender most likely to evolve into nurturing individuals who can
live at one with tomato plants. There is also the menace of a blind zombie, who
leaves a lasting impression on Vivi, and Eva becoming a literally earthy girl. If
there is a message, it is that science won’t save us, only cultivating a living
henna tattoo. It’s a film for the Extinction Rebellion generation, thought they
might baulk at the electricity used to project it.
Reviewed at Edinburgh
International Film Festival, Friday 28 June 2019, Odeon Lothian Road Screen
Four, 18:20 screening
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