There are several films and series that deal with the question of what you would do if you were the last person on earth? “In My Room”, which is shown on Das Erste this Sunday at 11:50 p.m., is one of the best films of its kind!
+++ Opinion +++
Are you moving straight into the most luxurious mansion in town? Or do you clear out all the cans from the nearest supermarket first? The thought experiment of what would be the first thing you would do if, in a second, you were suddenly the last person on the planet is so popular that it has pop culture in all its forms (books, films, video games) over and over again is exercised again and again …
… from the sitcom “The Last Man On Earth” with Will Forte to such science fiction classics as “The Last Man On Earth” (1964) or “Quiet Earth – The Last Experiment” (1985).
A fascinating mind game
In “In My Room” it is the freelance cameraman Armin (Hans Löw) who, after a miserable day in the Bundestag, in which he kept confusing the on and off button on his camera, suddenly becomes the (supposedly) last person on the planet wakes up – while the motorcycles of the disappeared are still lying around on the freeway and their dogs barking in the front yards!
“In My Room” will be broadcast on DAS ERSTE on February 15, 2022, at 11:50 p.m.
The film immediately offers numerous explanations for the people’s disappearance without a trace – but Armin doesn’t bother with such questions for long. Instead, he burns down the house of his youth and henceforth begins life as a potato farmer and animal breeder…
That’s why “In My Room” is worth it!
Director Ulrich Köhler uses the well-known scenario for a consistent, yet never trivial study of masculinity: Armin grabs a police sports car straight away and races through the streets with it, with the camera filming head-on through the windshield – a high-speed visualized mid-life crisis, so to speak! He later chases a dog that has taken away a newborn kid from him and he builds a small dam complete with a power generator in the nearby river – and eventually, he is significantly leaner and more muscular.
But their newfound manhood is put to the test when Italian Kirsi (Elena Radonicich) shows up. The house is finished so far, there are enough trees anyway, so the baby is still missing. But how the last two people on the planet are circling each other here, getting dressed out of necessity, but pushing off again despite the situation, is fascinating – with a resolution that might not have existed before #MeToo, but which still fits the time perfectly.
The most beautiful moment: Not only since “Dawn Of The Dead”, in which the protagonists flee from a zombie mob into a huge department store, has the irrepressible consumption frenzy in an abandoned shopping temple in end-of-the-time films simply been considered good form! There is also such a scene in “In My Room” – but not in a supermarket, but a video store.
A hero who does not eat his fill in a deserted world, but sees his fill – an extremely sympathetic thought…
