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aka - Dernier Combat, Le
France 1983
Directed by
Luc Besson
93 minutes
Rated PG

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
1.5 stars

The Last Battle

It would be interesting to know where Luc Besson got the money to make this, his debut feature about a man (Pierre Jolivet) trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Such fare was popular in the 80s with the Mad Max films standing out but Le Dernier Combat is distinguished by the commercially challenging fact that it has no dialogue, survivors apparently having lost ability to speak.

Given that Besson is working with a relatively small budget, has few actors and the storyline is meagre this leaves little to sustain one’s interest although the film did earn quite a deal of critical kudos in its day.  But then certain critics seem highly impressed by artistic pretensions and intimations of profundity (the influence of Akira Kurosawa’s samurai films of the 50s permeate the production), something which has continue to stand Besson in good stead throughout a very successful career

Opening with the main character (un-named) copulating with an inflatable doll, the film is one long ramble though a wasted world as he fights off scavengers, battles a Brute (Jean Reno), is befriended by a Doctor (Fritz Wepper) and eventually finds a beautiful devotchka lurking amidst the industrial rubble. The result is rather like an anachronistic silent comedy acted out to the accompaniment of Eric Serra’s typically 80s kitsch synthetic score although it is only fitfully funny and whatever significance was seen in the film in its day, why any would willingly sit through today, other than to recognize the delusions of their youth, is a mystery.

Available from: Madman

 

 

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