Watched The Last Days of Emma Blank (2009)

What can you expect from a film whose title already suggests how the whole story will end? But not when it’s a film by Alex van Warmerdam.

Alex van Warmerdam is famous for the fact that in most of his films he is not only a director, but also a screenwriter and an actor. That is, we have the opportunity to observe the work of the master simultaneously in several planes. And as usual, his roles in these films are usually far from typical. In “The Last Days”, for example, he played… a dog. Intriguing? Or frightening?..

The film greets us with a typical story, in which there is a wealthy young lady, actually Emma Blank, and a servant who fulfills her every whim. The first thing that surprises us is when a grown man is addressed as a dog. It becomes clear that something is not quite as it seems at first glance. The further, the clearer it becomes that all the servants and the mistress are one family, which, for some reason, is forced to play a game where everyone is assigned their own role.

There are directors whose films intrigue you from the first minutes of watching and keep you hooked until the very end. We watched several films by this director, and it was after this film that I had the idea that I should write a “big post” about directors who have an atypical view of cinema. The stories they cover in their films either arouse admiration in the viewer, or we read reviews in the spirit of “…I never understood what kind of bullshit took 1.5 hours of my life”. That is, this cinema is not for everyone, and you either like such stories or you don’t.

It is unlikely that listening to the list of actors who played the main roles, you will find many familiar names. However, for me, such films are like arthouse, where the main thing is not the names, but an unusual look at an idea. This is the case when, with a budget of 3 million, the film can collect 1 million. And this will not mean that the film is a failure. It is just that these films are about something different.

Conceptually, “The Last Days of Emma Blanc” reminded me of Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” or François Ozon’s “The Rat Trap,” where everything focuses on one family and the relationships within it. Like other Alex van Warmerdam films, you’ll either like it or not. A good option for those who are tired of superheroes and want to watch something neutral. In my own opinion, the film received an 8 out of 10. I recommend it.