Content area
Full Text
Leonel Dietsche makes his debut with a dystopian thriller
The New End
Dir Leonel Dietsche. Germany. 2018. 74 mins
Dystopian fantasy with a feminist angle sounds like an enticing prospect but The New End (Der Neue Ende) fails to make the most of its material. Leonel Dietsche’s overly ambitious debut feature struggles to fully develop a story that feels clumsy and incoherent, while also being so painfully earnest as to invite disbelief. There doesn’t appear to be a great future for The New End, dystopian or otherwise.
Gyrating boys and blood-smeared torture adds a lurid, voyeuristic element that pushes the film towards the grubbier end of B-movie exploitation cinema
The film’s post-apocalyptic landscapes are depicted in familiar shades of grey as we enter a world of derelict buildings, desolation and blackened forests. We are told that seasons no longer change and disease has caused misery...