My Last Film
Zia Anger, 2015
Contrasting the New York and Los Angeles independent film scenes, Zia Anger’s 2015 My Last Film is a bleak, violent, nine-minute diptych exploring the merits of private versus public creative integrity.
The short opens with two girls walking in the Brooklyn sun, one vocally bemoaning the challenges of the casting process, and how she longs for more roles that matter. Her pained stream of consciousness meets with silence and indifference from her yoga-mat-toting friend as the pair stroll through the streets of Williamsburg, ultimately with her calling out to the universe to ask why this is happening. This cosmic existential question is met with immediate and severe response, not once, but twice, and the scene ends with the answer well and truly delivered.
Part two takes us to Los Angeles, and the wealth and opulence of a home in the Hollywood Hills, where the immaculate furnishings conceal a woman under the influence of a toxic, abusive relationship. Terrifyingly played by Rosanna Arquette, we soon learn the identity of the abuser, and also how the woman plans to finally take back control after a lifetime of torment. This she does in dramatic, immediate fashion, but not before ensuring her legacy is protected and distributed via the latest creatively exclusive outlet on the web.
My Last Film is a short of contrasts. Not just geographically but also in terms of aspiration. The Williamsburg girl aspires to the kind of artistic integrity and craft only publicly attained by a few, and is keen to let anyone nearby who will listen know it. The woman in Los Angeles hides a secret passion, but has tasted success and been close to the action. Both experience violence, but with very different motives.
Ultimately My Last Film is a story of how you can choose to let an intrinsic creative passion consume and destroy you, or you can choose to proactively destroy it before it gets too late. As the credits roll we feel relief, but also as if the experience has performed a catharsis upon us. That we’ve been purged of our unspoken loathing for the creatively pretentious. Zia Anger even lets us know that those emotions are OK in her liner notes for the film online: ‘If you have arrived here for a cathartic experience please consider a donation to the ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/.’
My Last Film is currently streaming on Vimeo.
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