Would you rather an apocalypse to be
quick and terrifying or gradual and tense?
I always think the latter is more depressing and love it when filmmakers
agree…
Hernan (Pablo Seijo), a nonspecific office worker in Cordoba, overhears
reports on the radio of civil unrest in Buenos Aries so calmly resigns his job,
cancels his phone bill, donates his cat to a cattery and catches a bus out of
town. Also on the bus are a group of
other unremarkable workers who watch a promo video about their new life at some
kind of retreat. But this is no holiday;
every day the guests are woken up with a tannoy announcing the day’s
activities: Botany, State & Politics, camouflage, explosives…
Parabellum begins with an agonizing four-minute slow
pan over an empty field before finally the title (literally) bursts onto the
screen. This structure of slow build-up
to explosive climax works as foreshadowing for the pace of the rest of the
film. As Hernan starts to integrate with
the other lodgers, the whole second act of the film becomes a lengthy tableau
of survival courses, exercise routines, weapons training and theory
classes. The only thing that is missing
is an explanation for what exactly all of this training is leading too…
The film is full of emotionless dialogue
and static performances filmed over a beige-grey background with no
frills. The universe that the characters
live in is so bleak that you start to wonder whether the impending doom might
be more of a release than a tragedy. But
it is the not knowing that makes Parabellum
so tense.
First time director Lukas Valenta Rinner has created a austere world where ordinary
people are learning to fight for their lives against an unknown future threat: a
fitting reflection for our current fears about Terror that abstract notion that
defines our age…
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