Directed
by John Huddles, Starring: James D’Arcy, Bonnie Wright, Sophie Lowe, Daryl
Sabara. Science Fiction, US / Indonesia, 2013, 107mins, Cert 15.
On
their last day before graduating, a class of high-achieving students are given
one final challenge by their philosophy teacher. Imagine a nuclear apocalypse
scenario whereby there is a fully-equipped bunker which can only sustain ten
people for a year. Who do you decide to take with you into the safe haven of
the bunker in order to help repopulate and rebuild the human race once the
fallout has settled – and who do you leave outside to die in the radiation?
Going
into this film with neither prior knowledge nor any pre-conceived notions, I
was more than pleasantly surprised to find a smartly written conceit bristling
with ideas and told with ravishing visuals. Mind you, it’s not an easy film to
classify, nor indeed to heartily recommend without reservation. The premise is essentially a philosophical
classroom discussion. All a bit cerebral – not necessarily a bad thing – just
not a concept that’ll be universally welcomed you understand. Then again, the
visual representation of the impending apocalyptical scenarios are realised
with stunning Indonesian locations and judicious CGI. Although you never
totally forget that what you are witnessing is essentially all just
hypothetical, the script is sufficiently infused with moral curve balls which
catch both the viewer and the students regularly off-guard.
It’s
refreshing to watch a film about students in which you can actual believe they
might just be capable of graduating and may genuinely have a grasp of the
infinite monkey theorem. It helps that they are not just being served up on a smorgasbord
for some slicing and dicing, but instead are there as mouthpieces for
philosophical concepts and ideas. Amongst the student body you’ll recognise
Bonnie Wright (Harry Potter’s sweetheart Ginny Weasley), at the front of the
classroom, still in school, but at least she’s moved on from learning how to
transfigure into a cat from Professor McGonagall. Another familiar face is
Daryl (SPY KIDS) Sabara, now all grown-up and memorably manipulating one
hypothetical scenario to engineer an (enviable) conclusion whereby he is the
only male amongst a ‘harem’ of female students more than willing to copulate
with him for the continuation of the human race despite the fact he is
allegedly sterile! James D’Arcy’s teacher ‘Mr Zimit’ offers suave and sinister
in equal measure and an alarming tendency to (hypothetically) reach for
firearms in each hypothetical puzzle.
I will
concede that I thought the conclusion was a tad disappointing. Not because it
offers something so far-fetched and left-field that you feel cheated (it
resolutely doesn’t) but rather that in playing it straight it all ends on a
rather mundane note compared to the intellectual fireworks which have preceded
it.
But
with that reservation aside, I rather enjoyed my final lesson in Mr Zimit’s
class, or rather in the philosophical minds
of Mr Zimit’s graduating class. I didn’t learn a huge amount about the
human condition, but I did take this thought away with me: in the event of a
nuclear holocaust, when deciding if you’re ‘worthy’ of a place in the bunker,
for god’s sake don’t say you’re a poet.
**** (out of 5*)
Paul Worts
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