You might not think the director of the Oscar-winning The Artist was the best choice for a zombie movie, but Final Cut isn’t exactly your standard-issue zombie movie. In fact, technically, it’s not a zombie movie at all. What Michel Hazanavicius has done is remake the Japanese cult hit One Cut of the Dead, which follows a slightly hacky director (the great Romain Duris), who is hired by a Japanese production company to remake a popular Japanese horror film and do it as a one-take, live streaming event. They recruit him not because he’s talented and full of great ideas, but because he’s cheap, quick and willing to sacrifice artistic integrity to get the job done.
Final Cut begins with the 30-minute zombie short film, which is actually about a director making a zombie movie that is interrupted when real zombies invade the set. The short is awkward, has strange pauses a few times when characters break into overtly political tirades, and boasts some exceedingly realistic-looking gore effects. Once the short is done, the film backtracks to how the real director got involved in the first place, attempted to rework the script to make it more accessible to a French audience, and then had the Japanese producers tell him to go back to square one—including using the Japanese character names, even though no Japanese actors appear in the film. If it all sounds confusing and ridiculous, it’s meant to be. And it’s also very funny because the film serves as a biting satire of self-important actors, those who will do anything to please their financial overlords, and how resourceful creatives can actually put something together that may not be high art but is sometimes damn entertaining.
The final act of the film is the actual filming of the one-take short, this time seen from behind the scenes, and suddenly all of the strange and awkward moments from the original short make sense. Bérénice Bejo plays the director’s wife, a former actress who used to get so emotionally involved in her characters that it drove her to the brink of a breakdown. But when two of the leads of the short get sick at the last minute, the director and his wife have to take over the roles, leading to a type of controlled chaos.
The film is pure meta, a tribute to low-budget filmmaking that shows how unhinged such productions can be while also giving a glimpse into how such work can bond a crew and get everyone striving to make the best work possible, even if that work isn’t actually that good. To be clear, Final Cut is not a horror film, nor is it meant to be scary. The only tension in the movie revolves around getting the short film made, not cutting the live feed, and trying to make sure the audience doesn’t spot any of the trickery behind the scenes. Hazanavicius embraces the mess and the art form, and everyone is clearly having the time of their lives making this thing.
The film is now playing theatrically at the AMC South Barrington 24.
Did you enjoy this post? Please consider supporting Third Coast Review’s arts and culture coverage by making a donation. Choose the amount that works best for you, and know how much we appreciate your support!