Joshua Oppenheimer's 'The End' is a post-apocalyptic musical set in a Sicilian salt mine

Joshua Oppenheimer's first fiction film, 'The End', is a post-apocalyptic musical shot in the Italkali salt mine in Petralia Soprana, Sicily. The 148-minute film follows seven characters—Mother (Tilda Swinton), Father (Michael Shannon), Son (George MacKay), and others—living in a luxury bunker after the world has ended. The arrival of a girl from outside (Moses Ingram) disrupts their fragile equilibrium. Oppenheimer conceived the idea after an Asian oil magnate showed him a real underground bunker with an art vault, wine cellar, pool, and gardens. The film uses cheerful songs to heighten despair, and features artworks like Renoir's 'La Danseuse' and Francis Danby's 'The Deluge' as windows to a lost world. The mine, managed by Italkali, also houses the MACSS museum of contemporary art. Oppenheimer describes the film as a cautionary tale and an act of hope.