The Collapse

Abstract

Eight exciting chapters, eight moments and extreme situations derived from a sudden? crisis that leaves the planet without supplies.

Review

Starting on J-Day, there is a sudden global collapse whereby the supply of food, energy and other inputs is cut off.

This French miniseries addresses in each chapter distressing situations that arise from that event whose nature we ignore.

But it does not do it in any way: each one of its nervous chapters lasts only around 20 minutes and is filmed in real time with a handheld camera and in a single sequence shot. And it is not a quirk of style: the dramatic effect is prodigious and the technical expertise in the realization in some is astonishing.

The series does not fall into the usual Manichean nihilism of apocalyptic dystopias because, although human miseries appear in each chapter, the result of desperation for survival, gestures of solidarity and collaboration are not absent either.

The situations dealt with are individual or collective, often dilemmatic, with very different locations, different characters (with very few exceptions and few links between them) and with strong social and class notes, but without falling into the cliché. Overall the pacing is distressing but never hysterical, and the filmmakers have a knack for making chapters quite different and with room for surprise.

Filmed in 2019, this dystopia directed by Jérémy Bernard, Guillaume Desjardins and Bastien Ughetto (who stars in one of the most terrifying episodes) is prescient in some aspects of the global coronavirus crisis and undoubtedly related to the prevailing capitalist modes of production.

Pay attention to the final titles of each chapter. If you pay attention, you will see that they are revealing.