“I sincerely apologize for making us watch that” was one of the things I heard as I was leaving the screening of “End Of Animal”, but you know what, for the majority of this, I felt the complete opposite. I was enjoying this strange story and was looking forward to working out all of its mysteries, and yes, while it was frustrating that we do not ultimately find out what is exactly going on, until the end I thought that this film was very good. It was well shot, well acted, and had a strangeness or weirdness that I am attracted to. Although I hate the term, I actually felt that parts of this film were indeed “Lynchian”.
When a young pregnant woman and her taxi driver stop to pick up another passenger, things start to get immediately strange and intense, when the stranger starts spouting off the most intimate details of the driver and his female passenger. Creepily he even starts a countdown, to what no one knows, until suddenly there is a blinding flash of light. When the girl next awakens, she realizes that she is alone and that nothing electronic is working. She quickly finds a note from the driver stating that he tried to wake her and that he is going to the nearest rest-stop to try and find help, and he also asks the woman to wait for him.
After waiting a while, she decides to get out of the car and look around, when she comes across an abandoned house. Inside she finds a scared young boy and the two of them decide to go to the rest-stop together. Throughout the film, her destination is always this rest-stop but for whatever reason she never seems to make it there. Things just seem to get in her way, but she is not alone, as she comes across another couple who appear to be just as lost and confused as she is. Strangely their destination is also the rest-stop but they too are struggling to find it. To add to the intensity it also appears that there is some sort of weird monster picking off these strangers one by one. Strangeness forever continues involving a white dog, a single sneaker, a rapist and a walkie-talkie from which the stranger passenger from the taxi continues talking to the pregnant girl from, and what appears to be guiding her. By the end of the film, this once shy pregnant girl that would let people trample all over her has transformed herself into a bloody mess willing to do whatever is necessary for her and her baby to survive this post-apocalyptic world.
So, what is it all about? Is it all a dream? Does she have the devil’s child inside her? These are some of the things that I was thinking of while watching “End Of Animal”, and there appears to be clues to both of these questions. When I used to work in a bar, I used to have this recurring dream that I had to get a drink to a customer, but no matter how hard I tried, I never got back to them. Something always got in my way, and this is what the whole trip to the rest-stop feels like. Also on a television screen in one scene, there is a show on it and it constantly mentions dreams on it. Hmmm, is that a clue? Truthfully, I am not sure. Flashbacks seem to indicate that the strange man may in fact be the devil, who chooses the young girl to carry and give birth to his child. It must be said that anyone that crosses her or treats her poorly in the film, ultimately ends up dead. Anyway, while it is never explained, I found “End Of Animal” to be very interesting stuff and I look forward to future work from director Jo Sung-Hee (this is his feature debut).
3.5 Stars.
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