The world is going to an end: Director Abel Ferrara seems to advice all of us to that statement.
No escape, no survivors.
He tells us in his upcoming movie, “4:44 Last Day on Earth”, from the official competition in Venice Film Festival 2011, starring Willem Dafoe.
In a large apartment high above the city lives our couple. They’re in love. She’s a painter, he’s a successful actor. Just a normal afternoon – except that this isn’t a normal afternoon, for them or anyone else. Because tomorrow, at 4:44 am, give or take a few seconds, the world will come to an end far more rapidly than even the worst doomsayer could have imagined. The final meltdown will come not without warnings, but with no means of escape. There will be no survivors.

As always, there are those who, as their last cigarette is being lit and the blindfold tightened, will still hope against hope for some kind of reprieve. For a miracle. Not our two lovers. They – like the majority of the Earth’s population – have accepted their fate: the world is going to end.

Director Abel Ferara told to our microphones about man and nature:
“I would like to take this opportunity to quote a passage from our new film, which has the Dalai Lama speaking, in his inimitable way, on man and nature:
…  We human beings are almost like the creator or controller of the world; through technology, through science, we can do anything, everything… we do not run the nature. I think we human beings believe ourselves to be something above nature. I think that it is wrong. After all, we are part of the nature and as such, it is very clear, you see, we have the responsibility to take care of the environment, of the nature, because ultimately, we are part of the nature and its balance and we can dramatically change as a result….

What I have learned is word for word, fragmented, through different languages, grammatical or not, in or out of context: when the messenger is pure the message prevails”.

Not a disaster movie, but a philosophic way of living, and dying.

by Ilaria Rebecchi