These Final Hours

If the world was going to end in twelve hours – if we knew, for a fact, that absolutely everyone was about to die – how would we react?

These Final Hours is a stunningly realistic apocalypse drama and feature debut from writer and director Zak Hilditch and producer Liz Kearny. It was screened for the third time in Australia this weekend, at the Dark Mofo festival in Hobart. The screening was held in the wake of the film’s inclusion in The Director’s Fortnight at Cannes 2014, and ahead of its July 31 Australian release. 

Set appropriately in Perth, WA, the film doesn’t muck around with survivors or rebuilding the human race; it’s much more interested in those few hours when people know all is lost, and the way in which society and individuals break in an (albeit temporary) world without consequence.

For example, take James (Nathan Phillips) your average late 20s/early 30s Perth bloke who wants to get as messed up as possible so that when the fireball comes he doesn’t feel a thing. This involves leaving one girlfriend behind to face the end on her own, to go meet another at a really big party. It also involves a long, dangerous drive through rapidly deteriorating suburbs, with a lone radio broadcaster (David Field) to count down the hours and keep us company. On the way, James’s plans are interrupted when some latent good compels him to save the life of twelve-year-old Rose (Angourie Rice). Reluctantly, James relinquishes his plans to get obliterated and leverages his more empathetic side.

Like any good end-of-days drama, the inevitable wall of fire at the end of the film provides a severe but effective character development tool, and it really is the characters that Hilditch is focused in on. Fortunate, then, that the acting should be so good. Phillips, whose pained facial expressions served him so well in Wolf Creek and continue to do so here, plays a conflicted and recognisable James. Rice, who turned 12 during filming, delivers an astounding performance, and not just for her age. Everyone in the film, in fact, manages to balance the necessarily intensely emotional subject matter without ever going over the top. The film is a very honest reaction to circumstance, and a refreshingly Australian take on the genre. The ending is possibly a deviation from this, going a bit gooey after an hour and a half of harsh originality, but the film is otherwise riveting for its entire duration. 

The setting is recognisably Perth and recognisably suburban Australian, but it’s also recognisably human, which is what makes it so effecting. Combine this with an environment that is recognisably sweltering, with a yellow grading to the stock, and the cinema itself feels like it is heating up around its audience. This, along with the brilliant detail and the balance of effects, rounds out the realism of the piece to build a compelling and believable apocalyptic landscape.

As Kearny pointed out in the Q&A session after the film, the Australian general public has ‘an Australian film…problem’, making domestic release a nerve-wracking event, even after success overseas. These Final Hours is a brilliant piece of cinema, however, Australian or otherwise, and its quality, originality and gripping plot should easily overcome this recalcitrance. Go see it.  

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

These Final Hours

Writer and director: Zak Hiditch
Producer: Liz Kearny
Executive Producer: Robert
Music: Cornel Wilczek
Cinematography: Bonnie Elliott
Film Editing: Nick Meyers
Performers: Nathan Phillips, Angourie Rice, David Field, Sarah Snook, Jessica De Gouw, Daniel Henshall, Kathryn Beck

State Cinema, Elizabeth St, North Hobart
Dark Mofo Festival
www.darkmofo.net.au
12-22 June