Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020
Images from the Internet
Ever After (aka EndZeit)
Directed by Carolina Hellsgård
ARTE / Das Kleine Fernsehspiel (ZDF) / Grown Up Films
/
Juno Films / MVD Entertainment
Juno Films / MVD Entertainment
90 minutes, 2018 / 2020
You say you’re looking for something
lighthearted with zombies along the lines of Zombieland (2009)? Man,
you’ve come to the wrong Blu-ray. However, if you’re looking for a deeply
serious Euro-centric post-Z-Apoc universe where everything is dire, well, have
I got the film for you!
When the film opens, the Z-Apoc happened two
years previously, and in Germany, there are only two barricaded cities left. In
one (Weimer), that I think of as Republican, the zombies are shot on site with zero
tolerance. In the second (Jena), which I envision as Democrat, they are working
hard to find a cure. We start off in the former, and meet our central character,
(dyed) redhead Vivi (pop and soul singer Gro Swantje Kohlhof), who suffers from
severe PTSD from an experience as the munching pandemic virus took a bite into
humanity. We see it in snatches of flashback. She’s withdrawn and nearly
child-like.
Gro Swantje Kohlhof and Maja Lehrer |
She manages to get out of Republicanville and
meet up with fellow ex-pat Eva (Maja Lehrer), who is also running away after an
incident. Eva is the opposite of Vivi in that she’s hard as nails and not
exactly cuddly. They both decide to try to make it to the Democrat land by
cutting through the Black Forest.
Along the way, Vivi befriends an older,
mother-figure type (Tryne Dyrholm, who played the title role in 2017’s Nico,
1988). She’s a philosophical flower child who sees what is happening around
the globe in a specific purpose as part of the natural world. Of course, we
don’t really know what set off the Z-Apoc, whether natural or man-made, but it
is all part of what nature is, according to her (I’ll leave most of her
philosophizing for when you see it).
For this adventure, the zombies are fast,
growl like beasts as their only verbal communication, and of course are
ruthlessly vicious with no sense of their previous personhood. Like sharks,
they’re mindless machines lookin’ for a snack of gristle and gore. An odd thing
about that is even though there are some cringe-worthy moments, this is
definitely not Fulci-like. It is more story-driven, so there is a dependence on
character development rather than focused on shots of viscera.
There is also a philosophy that runs
throughout, and that is to ponder what our place is in a world in which society
as we know it is no longer strong enough to support us. Everyone seems to be
searching for an answer to that, either directly or unconsciously.
In other words, while the zombies are fast,
the storytelling mostly is not. There are thrilling moments where it’s
do-or-die with Vivi and Eva against either single snackers or a group of them
(or, horde, as the case may be).
Although essentially a three-person film, this
is mostly Vivi’s story, and we basically see it through her eyes. It’s a world
that is both harsh and beautiful as she mentions that one can see the stars
again.
Despite the zombies roaming around snackin’,
this is a very slow-moving film that makes Hereditary (2018) look like Mad
Max: The Road Warrior (1981). This isn’t something you just pop in for a
quick fun ride on a Saturday afternoon in your mom’s basement, this is a piece
of cinema that is quite serious and deep, albeit that it keeps up the tension.
I enjoyed it a lot, but it took some thinkin’ work to get through it all.
In German with subtitles, this picture is
essentially a three-person piece, and except for the flesh eaters, all the main
characters and most of the secondary ones are female. Director Carolina Hellsgård presents a bleak world yet filled with beauty, as I
said, and takes us on a physical and philosophical journey that needs to be
taken one step at a time.
The extras are chapters, sound choices, and two versions of the
trailer: the original German and English. My one real complaint about the film
is that although I’m happy to have the subtitles, they are pure white and
small, and hard to read more than I would like, especially with a film this
deep in its dialogue. Plus Vivi wears a white top and if the subtitles are superimposed
on them, it’s damn near impossible to make out.
I’m not surprised this has won some festival prizes as this is the kind
of film the serious viewers are itching for, rather than some found footage
goofball release. With patience and thought, it’s worth a gander.
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