In 1983, a young auteur filmmaker named Luc Besson made his directorial debut with the science fiction film "Le dernier combat". It is apparent from his first feature that he wanted to be a different kind of director. His efforts would pay off at the end, helping create the movement of the cinéma du look.
"Le dernier combat" is a very special modern film. It is shot in black and white - much like the other auteur's, Truffaut's movie, "Vivement dimanche !" the same year- , and there is no audible speech. Sure, there is music, but the action is progressed through the body movements of the actors.
The film shows a post-apocalyptic society where all institutions have disappeared and everyone lives for themselves. The main hero of the story, The Man (played by Pierre Jolivet) struggles to survive and makes weapons from everyday objects, in order to fight his enemy, The Brute (Jean Reno). It's The Man striving to remain alive in such an aggressive environment that we see during this relatively short film.
The black and white cinematography gave the movie its distinct character, differentiating it from other colorful blockbusters of the time. It also gave it its seriousness. "Le dernier combat" is no action film, full of explosions of which the orange smoke rises high above. It features no huge lush settings. It's a debutant director's vision of a world in which nothing resembling a real society exists. All is somber, depressing, dangerous. And for this somberness to become apparent, black and white needs to be used. Colour makes the contradiction between the good and the villainous, the civilized and the primitive difficult to portray without just showing a visual spectacle. Here, the ideas are what matters.
Besson's direction was good, but aesthetically unappealing to my eyes. While being suitably slow-paced, showing The Man's every moment of his quest to survive, it becomes dull after the first thirty minutes, just dragging on and leading to a disappointing climax. His choice to leave the film soundless was interesting, but rendered it quite difficult to follow. Nevertheless, the intricate ideas of Besson were too complex to be communicated through words.
And which are these ideas? Besson examines plenty of topics, the most important being the behaviour of humans in the state of nature and how the disappearance of institutions in the society. The state of nature is the state in which humans live without the rules of a society, like in a jungle. The idea was proposed by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who famously characterised the life in it as "nasty, brutish and short". Certainly, life in "Le dernier combat" is that, and much more. Humans no longer trust each other. Everyone could be an enemy, a killer. The Man is alone, walking through the ruins of civilization searching for tools and food, being only able to grunt, much like an animal. Gone is the spirit of collaboration and compassion characterising modern times. Now, the rule of the strong is dominant, and showing sympathy for someone could be fatal.
Concerning the role of institutions, Besson makes it clear with this work that they are absolutely needed. Otherwise, everyone would turn against the other. Without a higher authority to exercise control over them, the people would just battle all the time for dominance. This is another idea of Hobbes, the so-called Leviathan. The Leviathan is an authority stronger than the other people that functions as a mitigator of violence. Because there is someone more powerful, the aggressor doesn't risk to attack and peace is kept. In the world of "Le dernier combat", this authority doesn't exist, and the humans let their instincts dictate the way they act, leading to utter chaos. Still, I doubt Besson supports Hobbes's version of the Leviathan, a state that constantly surveils its citizens so that they won't do any harm to each other. This would contradict his later films that have the weak as protagonists against stronger authorities ("Nikita", "Subway"). What he wanted to show was that in a post-apocalyptic society, in which no institution is present, even the most benevolent of people can't easily collaborate with others. He doesn't treat that cynically, he laments that. Even in the universe of "Le dernier combat", there are teams of people working together, but they are rare. Media using the trope of the post-apocalyptic society have people collaborate, thus showing that the spirit of collaboration can come alive again, with some effort. The people in Besson's film haven't found it, and remain primitive, but the choice to work together may still exist in the back of their minds.
Their primitive nature is also underlined by the fact they are nameless. The name is one of the basic characteristics of a person, how they are addressed by the others. We even have different expectations for someone based on their name. When social interaction is nonexistent, the name is useless. This trait of one's personal identity doesn't need to exist ,because so does personal identity itself. In a primitive nature, no one is more special than the others. They are all weak beings, struggling to remain alive in a threatening world.
The music represented this primitiveness in a special way. It essentially used the complete opposite of a simple instrument in order to create plain sounds: the synthesiser. The synthesiser was back then the symbol of musical modernity. By using synthesiser-driven melodies, the composer, Eric Serra, created an oxymoron, since he gifted the film a soundtrack that perfectly captured the jungle-like competition for survival through the most state-of-the-art musical instrument. The old and the new combined.
In conclusion, Luc Besson's "Le dernier combat" is an intriguing, yet overly ambitious work that shows the contrast between order and chaos in human society. It is worth watching as a divergent example of the usually light-hearted, and commercial French 80's cinema.
"Le dernier combat" is a very special modern film. It is shot in black and white - much like the other auteur's, Truffaut's movie, "Vivement dimanche !" the same year- , and there is no audible speech. Sure, there is music, but the action is progressed through the body movements of the actors.
The film shows a post-apocalyptic society where all institutions have disappeared and everyone lives for themselves. The main hero of the story, The Man (played by Pierre Jolivet) struggles to survive and makes weapons from everyday objects, in order to fight his enemy, The Brute (Jean Reno). It's The Man striving to remain alive in such an aggressive environment that we see during this relatively short film.
The black and white cinematography gave the movie its distinct character, differentiating it from other colorful blockbusters of the time. It also gave it its seriousness. "Le dernier combat" is no action film, full of explosions of which the orange smoke rises high above. It features no huge lush settings. It's a debutant director's vision of a world in which nothing resembling a real society exists. All is somber, depressing, dangerous. And for this somberness to become apparent, black and white needs to be used. Colour makes the contradiction between the good and the villainous, the civilized and the primitive difficult to portray without just showing a visual spectacle. Here, the ideas are what matters.
Besson's direction was good, but aesthetically unappealing to my eyes. While being suitably slow-paced, showing The Man's every moment of his quest to survive, it becomes dull after the first thirty minutes, just dragging on and leading to a disappointing climax. His choice to leave the film soundless was interesting, but rendered it quite difficult to follow. Nevertheless, the intricate ideas of Besson were too complex to be communicated through words.
And which are these ideas? Besson examines plenty of topics, the most important being the behaviour of humans in the state of nature and how the disappearance of institutions in the society. The state of nature is the state in which humans live without the rules of a society, like in a jungle. The idea was proposed by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who famously characterised the life in it as "nasty, brutish and short". Certainly, life in "Le dernier combat" is that, and much more. Humans no longer trust each other. Everyone could be an enemy, a killer. The Man is alone, walking through the ruins of civilization searching for tools and food, being only able to grunt, much like an animal. Gone is the spirit of collaboration and compassion characterising modern times. Now, the rule of the strong is dominant, and showing sympathy for someone could be fatal.
Concerning the role of institutions, Besson makes it clear with this work that they are absolutely needed. Otherwise, everyone would turn against the other. Without a higher authority to exercise control over them, the people would just battle all the time for dominance. This is another idea of Hobbes, the so-called Leviathan. The Leviathan is an authority stronger than the other people that functions as a mitigator of violence. Because there is someone more powerful, the aggressor doesn't risk to attack and peace is kept. In the world of "Le dernier combat", this authority doesn't exist, and the humans let their instincts dictate the way they act, leading to utter chaos. Still, I doubt Besson supports Hobbes's version of the Leviathan, a state that constantly surveils its citizens so that they won't do any harm to each other. This would contradict his later films that have the weak as protagonists against stronger authorities ("Nikita", "Subway"). What he wanted to show was that in a post-apocalyptic society, in which no institution is present, even the most benevolent of people can't easily collaborate with others. He doesn't treat that cynically, he laments that. Even in the universe of "Le dernier combat", there are teams of people working together, but they are rare. Media using the trope of the post-apocalyptic society have people collaborate, thus showing that the spirit of collaboration can come alive again, with some effort. The people in Besson's film haven't found it, and remain primitive, but the choice to work together may still exist in the back of their minds.
Their primitive nature is also underlined by the fact they are nameless. The name is one of the basic characteristics of a person, how they are addressed by the others. We even have different expectations for someone based on their name. When social interaction is nonexistent, the name is useless. This trait of one's personal identity doesn't need to exist ,because so does personal identity itself. In a primitive nature, no one is more special than the others. They are all weak beings, struggling to remain alive in a threatening world.
The music represented this primitiveness in a special way. It essentially used the complete opposite of a simple instrument in order to create plain sounds: the synthesiser. The synthesiser was back then the symbol of musical modernity. By using synthesiser-driven melodies, the composer, Eric Serra, created an oxymoron, since he gifted the film a soundtrack that perfectly captured the jungle-like competition for survival through the most state-of-the-art musical instrument. The old and the new combined.
In conclusion, Luc Besson's "Le dernier combat" is an intriguing, yet overly ambitious work that shows the contrast between order and chaos in human society. It is worth watching as a divergent example of the usually light-hearted, and commercial French 80's cinema.