‘Final Cut’ review: Dir. Michel Hazanavicius [Cannes 2022]

One’s enjoyment of Michel Hazanavicius’ latest really depends if you’ve seen the film on which it is based, it seems, mingling with journalists heading out of the very first Cannes screening at the 2022 edition. Me, fitting into what seems to be the minority; those who haven’t seen Shin’ichir? Ueda’s 2017 much-loved horror/ comedy gem One Cut Of The Dead, had a hoot with Hazanavicius’ version, a brilliant comedy of errors with lots of nods to the film that came before it, too. Minor spoilers for both films ahead

Final Cut revolves around the shooting of a low-budget zombie flick somewhere outside of Paris. Taking place entirely inside a building, we see the two leads struggling to find the emotion to put into their relevant roles, the director of the piece getting very over-excited after 30-plus takes, his lead actress struggling to find real tears to give him his perfect ending. At boiling point, the filmmaker storms off only to return having seemingly woken a curse that has brought real zombies to life. Now his one-take zombie movie can really take off, and his stars realise that they are now battling the actual undead in a series of splatter-filled sequences as they run for their lives, the camera obviously rolling continuously. 30 minutes later, the film has reached its climax and the final girl stands victorious among decapitated torsos and gallons of blood.

From here, spoilers for those unfamiliar with the original movie.

After the electric first third, all presented as a fully-fledged short, credits et al, we’re transported back in time exactly one month where we find the director that we saw at the beginning of the movie, Rémi (a brilliant Romain Duris – soon to be seen as Aramis in no less than two ‘Musketeers’ movies), helming a different project – a soulless commercial back in Paris. This section of the film sees him sign up for and ultimately plan the film we’ve already seen, the final section – act three – taking us back into the film but from a voyeur looking at the troubled production, all to much hilarity.

What is first seen as another zombie comedy, soon becomes quite a cleverly put together comedy of errors, focussing in on small budget filmmaking and the ambition behind the production of a one shot-ter. There’s a lot to like in the film, once you get around that first half hour, which is chock-full of odd little moments which all are explained later.

That frst part has a wonderful cross-processed look about it, difrenctiating it from what follows, which is essentially uplifting story of family. I left the screening having had an absolute hoot. There are some really nice nods back to the original movie, too, with Hazanavicius adding an extra layer to proceedings in the middle section where filmmakers are being pressured to change leave character names unchanged from an original Japanese version of the movie – all because there’s a big investment from the far east. Yoshiko Takehara, who starred in the original version also appears here, as one of the said investors.

A definite audience-please that’ll take most by surprise, particualrly if you haven’t seen the original. Those that have may not be invested as much but there are so many nice little touches throughout that it is difficult not to fall for its overall charm.

Final Cut was reviewed at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.