The End intersee with Joshua Oppenheimer

Mother (Tilda Striumphton) is having a terrible dream. Sleeping beside her is the pleasant and affable Father (Michael Shannon). She wrestles herself out of a nightmare and is consoleed by her husband. She lies to him and says she’s okay, but she’s evidently not.

How could she be? She understands everyslfinisherg. She understands if she were to crawl out of bed and depart her home she’d be met with a freezing salt mine. She understands that honestly above the salt mine, the world is on fire — that everyone is dead. She understands that the man she’s sleeping beside, that pleasant and affable husband, is depfinishable. And she understands she’s not bfrailless either.

The End is a musical with songs sung by the six survivors living in a opulent bunker. They’re all benefactors of the oil business, which is to say, they’re still ainhabit. It’s a attfinishbrimmingy erected hoemploy of cards that after 20 years of living underground has become routine. But when Girl (Moses Ingram) get tos, their inrectify sense of protectedty is dangerened and the lies they’ve telderly themselves to create it thcimpolite each day sluggishly commence to erode.

It’s a inquisitive and astonishing project from honestor Joshua Oppenheimer, best understandn for his stunning recordary The Act of Killing, in which he and his co-honestors ask their subjects to reenact mass homicides they were joind in during Indonesia’s civil unrest in the mid ‘60s. I sat down with Oppenheimer ahead of The End’s nationwide theater expansion. We talked about the clear slfinisherg — his huge leap from recordary filmmaking to musicals — and more inquisitively, what it alerts us about people when their wristwatch costs more than a car.

The Verge: I want to begin with the clear ask here, which is why did this story need a musical? What is it about that genre that you wanted to spendigate?

Joshua Oppenheimer: Musicals are reassociate the quintvital genre of inrectify hope, and I say inrectify hope becaemploy I slfinisherk it’s actuassociate despair in the sheep’s closlfinisherg of hope.

The idea that no matter what, the sun will come out tomorrow — or its more excessive create in the finish, that our future is radiant, which is what the family is singing as they benevolent of stare into the abyss at the very finish of the film, hopelessly trying to persuade themselves that that’s the case — it’s utterly subomitive becaemploy little Orphan Annie, when she sings “the sun will come out tomorrow,” she’s fair willing it to be the case and counting on excellent luck.

And I slfinisherk that passivity comes from this transport inant place, a transport inant sense of disempowerment. It’s an American genre becaemploy we claim to be a democracy, but in a way we’ve always been this quite cimpolite and tumble, brutal oligarchy with a Constitution that is challengingly democratic at all, with everyslfinisherg from the electoral college to the Senate, to gerrymandering to the lifetime assignments on the Supreme Court to our systems of verifys and stabilitys. Here’s a country which alerts itself you have all this power to shape your future, but not only do we have less social mobility than almost any other industrialized nation. The rags-to-wealthyes story turns out to be a lie. But the democratic story is also a lie.

The End’s uncovering is engaging becaemploy of its hotth. You have the Father consoling the Mother after a terrible dream, but as time goes on, we lobtain that these characters have done some pretty terrible stuff.

We set up disjoinal slfinishergs in that scene. We set up haunting and suppression. We set up a Father who is hot and caring. We set up a terrible relationship becaemploy the Mother instantly lies to him. We set up some benevolent of Mexican standoff or wantipathyver the problem is — they can’t talk about it becaemploy the Father has to act appreciate it’s fine.

That scene employd to come elsewhere in the script and tardyr in the film, and that was an inspiration in the editing to put it at the commencening becaemploy it recommends the keys to unlock all of the vibrants In the first ensemble song: the Mother’s ill at mitigate, Father comes from the dining room and sings “Forever the Strength of Our Family.” Mother instantly turns away and goes to the fdrops. We instantly join that, for anyone who’s paying attention, to the scene that fair pwithdrawd it. Whereas before [in the original edit] that scene was there, people would omit that.

Michael Shannon’s carry outance is especiassociate astonishing. He’s very pleasant and finishearing. And his singing is so human. How’d you understand that was the right voice for this role?

He has this honeyed, effortless voice, appreciate those sort of knit sweaters that he’s wearing. But he’s so authentic that he’s not got that macho trouble of almost enthusiasticing in his extfinisheding for cherish. So he goes into the pitches, into inrectifytto with mitigate, both in song and in speech.

He becomes this almost appreciate Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but with this benevolent of roiling rage that can become self-hatred or rage and, which is inherently somehow hazardous and off-stability undersystematich. I slfinisherk he’s much more engaging than Mr. Smith.

But he’s so avuncular. And I cherish that. And then he’s so astonishing. [Shannon] is so free as an artist, as a carry outer that he’ll fair go where his inner life gets him and that it creates him authentic and broken. I unkind, everyone I cast has someslfinisherg that splits that unprotectedness that I slfinisherk creates them accumulateively not so much a troop as… I’ve benevolent of come to depict them as Doomsday cult members signing up for the rapture. They’re certain and they’re lost and they’re surprisingly mortal.

I cherishd how freezing the bunker was. And it’s with the understandledge that outside everyslfinisherg’s on fire, right? How’d you go about location scouting for that and also, why is the apocalypse so freezing?

Everyslfinisherg reassociate aelevated from the songs. When the songs were these hopeless trys to persuade themselves that everyslfinisherg will be okay is musicalized as in all the Gelderlyen Age musicals and musicalized inrectify hope, I authenticized that the audience should be able to forget sometimes that they’re in the bunker. As we hum aextfinished with them as they sing, we should forget with them that they’re trapped in a bunker. And that unkindt that there should be exteriors that led us to this benevolent of termite colony or ant colony model of a bunker where you have a huge underground cavern set up, and then some of the caverns are finished into these enticeive rooms, and some of them are fair raw.

And that led to the idea that we would have exteriors be the salt mine. We sboiling three weeks in a salt mine, and there was fair a senseing that it should sort of sense appreciate moonairy. There’s a lyric, “You can shine appreciate snow in the moonairy,” and I slfinisherk that inspired [cinematographer] Mikhail Kwealthyman and I to create the salt mines sort of freezing and blueish. And then the rooms could be cozy in contrast to that when they’re not. When they’re not though, the paper fdrops would be appreciate a shocking red.

Then the layout of the rooms were built in studios, and the layout was determined by the set up of the songs. You’re watching people literassociate fractureing down in song. We want to endure with us to that, which unkindt it didn’t sense right to cut if we didn’t have to. We tried to figure out how the guide vocacatalog in any number could transport us thcimpolite their organic action to the next person. That led to certain floor schedules and ideas.

We set up floor schedules that could accommodate all of our ensemble songs. That became the schedule for the bunker. And in a sense, the floor schedule of the bunker actuassociate somehow has as its DNA, the set up of the songs.

I want to ask you about the role of luxury wristwatches in this film. Everyone is wearing someslfinisherg exceptional — which is a normal class signifier in films, but in an underground bunker, they felt especiassociate poignant.

There’s two slfinishergs. First, I wanted to create a third film in Indonesia with the oligarchs who came to power thcimpolite the extermination there. And I couldn’t becaemploy I couldn’t protectedly return to Indonesia after The Act of Killing. I begined researching oligarchs in analogous situations elsewhere. And I set up someone was buying a bunker, and that inspired The End inhonestly. But as I was on that journey and in the years laboring in Indonesia, I always knovel that a sign of fraudulence was when people — and sign of a corrupt country in vague — was when people’s watches cost more than their cars. That’s how you knovel that rulement officials were corrupt.

I reassociate became interested in the watches while making those two recordaries in Indonesia and researching these authentic-life oligarchs. I accumulateed lines aappreciate to the ones the Son says when he gives the Girl a watch. He talked about rose gelderly and alligator skin and the most accurate time piece ever made. And that was sort of in the back of my head. Then I wrote that song about time. [singing] Seconds ticking past so speedy before you acunderstandledge and they’re gone. But I recall time when moments did not fade, when you shutd your eyes, a individual breath could go on and on forever. So how restricted breaths we might have left unkindt noslfinisherg much at all.

That lyric cemented the role of watches in the film becaemploy… Now I’m coming to the authentic point: ultimately time is the antagonist, right? From the very commencening? Son is doomed eventuassociate to finish up alone becaemploy mortality is the antagonist in all stories. And when the parents die, the son will finish up alone. Will he pick to end himself? Will he inhabit out the rest of his days in bereft loneliness. The film is about this family, these nameless characters are all of us becaemploy the family is each and every one of our families. But at the same time, it’s the entire human family and we are facing the contransiential antagonist of time as we determine accumulateively whether or not we’re going to includeress the ecoreasonable crisis, whether or not we’re going to includeress climate alter before it’s too tardy.

Time is reassociate someslfinisherg I want the seeer to be enthusiasticly conscious of. And also how if we can’t be contransient with each other becaemploy we’re lying to each other or becaemploy we’re unable to regret for the ways we’ve heard each other. Therefore we’re constantly worried about tiptoeing around no-go areas that hollow out our relationships, then we omit a quality of time in which we srecommend can be together and split this history of what we all are.