theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer on his apocalyptic musical 'The End'

Joshua Oppenheimer made his name directing two disturbing documentaries, The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014), that dealt with the aftermath of the brutal anti-communist massacres in Indonesia in 1965-66. Those films addressed how people lie to themselves in order to live with guilt and trauma. Oppenheimer's first fiction film, The End, is a radical continuation of the same idea.

The End is a dystopian musical about a rich family that found refuge in a bunker 20 years after an environmental catastrophe. The parents (Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon), their grownup son (George MacKay) and the few people they have taken with them underground are not so much hiding from the world outside than shying away from the truth within. Their singing might be a coping mechanism for for them, but it's proving an irritant for most audience members.

Seated in a Berlin hotel room that overlooked the city in bright daylight, Oppenheimer – a 50-year-old American who lives in Copenhagen – discusses the intentions behind his strange parable about the stories that we tell ourselves and the realities that we hide from. (Pictured below: Moses Ingram, Tilda Swinton)

PAMELA JAHN: How would you cope in a bunker 20 odd years after the world as we know it has ended?

JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER: Not very well. But I wouldn't be in a bunker. The point of this film is that we need to do everything we can right now to prevent it from coming to that. The film appears to be about our future, but it's really about the destructive habits of self-deception and the lies and rationalizations that we live with right now.

In other words, this family in the bunker is not just a rich family, it is not just an allegory for humanity in the face of the climate crisis. All of us in some way or another are already living entrapped in bunkers. Because of fear and repression, we hide and ignore the consequences of our actions. In the end, the film is a cautionary tale, and the bunker in the film really is a prison of shame.

Although different in form and style, The End seems strangely in tune with your previous films in the way you're trying to explore the depths of the human psyche.

At a fundamental level, The End, like The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, is a reflection on telling stories. On how we use stories to hide from the world itself. How we make up excuses for ourselves, to ease our guilt. It's about the deeply human ability to lie to ourselves and the terrible consequences that may follow from that. But at the same time, there is also a very real connection.

In what way?

After my previous films, I was originally planning to make a film about Indonesian billionaires – men who came to power through terror and secured an economic empire for themselves. But after the release of The Act of Killing, I couldn't go back [to Indonesia]. Instead, I started researching oligarchs elsewhere and came across a Central Asian oil tycoon who had used violence to secure the rights to his oil fields.

This oligarch was in the process of buying a bunker for himself and his family, like the one in the film. He invited me to visit him, and as we walked through this strange building, I couldn't get these questions out of my head: How do you live with the guilt of the catastrophe you are fleeing from? How do you raise a new generation that has never seen the outside world, that has no idea what you have destroyed and left behind? (Pictured below: Tim McInnerny, Michael Shannon, George MacKay, Tilda Swinton, Bronagh Gallagher, Lennie James)At what point did it become clear to you that the film would be a musical?

Always, from the very beginning. This film could have been a fly-on-the-wall documentary, shot 25 years after the end of the world and set in this bunker with the oil tycoon and his relatives. That was a pretty unlikely option. And luckily the world hasn't ended yet. For me, it had to be a musical, because it's the ultimate genre of a very specific kind of false hope – this illusion where you know very well that you are racing towards the abyss at full speed and you only have this one opportunity to be honest with the people you love. Just this one chance to live a life that really has meaning through a love that is perfect in its honesty and connection.

Yet we bury our heads in the sand because we are afraid to face the truth, because we don't dare to address the most complicated, painful emotional issues with the people closest to us. We'd rather tell ourselves that the future is bright, as the characters in my film sing, or that tomorrow the sun will definitely come out, as Annie sings in the famous musical. But that's not hope – that's pure desperation. Even more, that's the wolf of desperation in the sheep's clothing of hope. We're particularly good at that in America. And the musical brings that attitude to perfection. It's its climax.

Would you consider it to be more of an anti-musical?

In the classic Hollywood musical, there is this cliché. People sing when their feelings become too big for words. In moments of insecurity, in crises of doubt, the characters in our film romanticise their situation. They create new stories for themselves so they can move on. When the stories they tell themselves no longer work – when their lies and excuses begin to crumble – all that's left is the romanticisation, and that's when they break into song. But often it's a desperate attempt. Sometimes the music doesn't hold up; it collapses under its own weight. They hit a wall of silence and have to pick themselves up to start over. In a way, the music is a beautiful, shining lie. But the truth screams in the silence.

And how do you write music that screams in the silence?

When we wrote the music for the film, we realised that it shouldn't be twelve individual songs. It should be a single piece of music in which the same melodies are repeated over and over again, because when we hear a melody that we already know, we automatically hum along; it's something we do unconsciously. In that moment, the audience identifies physically with the characters as they lie to themselves. You slip into their skin. You experience first-hand what it's like to lie to yourself.

This led us to a crucial realisation. If the characters forget that they're in a bunker and convince themselves that they're living the best possible life, then the audience should forget that, too. For us, this meant that the bunker should not feel too claustrophobic. But how do you create an environment without windows that doesn't feel suffocating? We found the answer in the mother's art collection. The paintings become the windows into a lost nature that of course never existed because it was always just a romanticisation. (Pictured below: Tilda Swinton)

The son is building a diorama – a kitschy, idealised miniature version of America. Is that part of the same syndrome?

Yes. If you look closely, you can see some of the country's real social problems, only seen through a nostalgic lens.

I found the son the most fascinating character in the film, not least because he begins to ask questions that shake up the ideal world his parents have created. How would you describe him?

The son actually knows quite a lot about his parents' crimes and guilt. That's the tragedy. He's known for a long time. But he also knows that it's his job to reassure his parents. They mustn't break down, because if they fall, his whole world will collapse too. The mother justifies all of her decisions with one sentence that she repeats over and over again: "I did all of this just so that I could be a great mother to you." This has an effect on him. He is someone who wants to please everyone, but his fate has already been sealed. He will be all alone in the end. Everyone else will die before him.

But suddenly someone new comes into his life – a young woman [played by Moses Ingram] from outside. However, instead of being happy, the family decides they have to get rid of her. Why?

Because they've never let anyone in before. If you let this girl stay, then you have to face the fact that they have let everyone else die, and that is precisely the central tragedy of the film. The [vital] question is not only whether this family will accept the truth in the end, but above all whether the son will accept this gift that this girl brings into their isolated world? Or will he not be able to?

You could also put a question mark after the title. Is it really going to be the end?

We don't know. But, you see, the characters in my film have no names because they are a metaphor for you and me. This family is the last family in the story, but I believe that it's not yet too late for mankind.

Are all families somewhat dysfunctional in our modern world?

I think so, and I'm glad you put it that way. This is a film about love above all, and our human capacity for love within a family. The film exists on two levels. It shows how our capacity for love is undermined when we lie to ourselves and when we impose those lies on the lives of the people we love.

Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist?

I'm a possibilist, which is not just saying anything is possible. It's saying, I think that I am hopeful. I am not an optimist, but I believe we can come together collectively. The solutions to the climate crisis and the solution to our democracy crises are there. Perhaps something else will destroy us first – an uncontrolled artificial intelligence, a nuclear war or some other catastrophe. In the same way, we don't know when our personal end will come, but there's a beautiful old Zen mantra that says it all: 'It is in our nature to grow old. It is in our nature to get sick. It is in our nature to lose the people we love. It is in our nature to die. How then shall we live?'

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