The Collapse

Five episodes, all shot in one take, five different situations in an escalation. This was so tense it actually gave Chernobyl a match, with much much lesser means. Episode 1 is the weakest, because of the acting, but it already sets the mood : extreme paranoïa, and survival of the fittest! That was quite an achivement in horror in its purest sense. Highly recomended! Edit : Episodes 6-8 are on the same model, but add some interconnectivity between some storylines, to great effect.

Ranging from episodes of fifteen minutes to twenty seven minutes this eight-parter told tales of disparate people and groups tenuously linked in some of the episodes.

The end was no longer nigh, it had happened. Capitalist society had broken down and the programmes explored various characters' reactions to survive the cataclysm.

Few of the episodes engaged me. However both the storyline and the acting in the episode set in the old folks home were a definite winner. I found the final episode the weakest of all as I could not believe either in the subversives nor in their acceptance by the television debate programme.

I also found the garage episode far fetched. A baseball bat would never have kept the ravening hordes away nor could it have stopped them sacking the place.

All in all an easy watch to fill in some time.

Abstract

Eight exciting chapters, eight moments and extreme situations derived from a sudden? crisis that leaves the planet without supplies.

Review

Starting on J-Day, there is a sudden global collapse whereby the supply of food, energy and other inputs is cut off.

This French miniseries addresses in each chapter distressing situations that arise from that event whose nature we ignore.

But it does not do it in any way: each one of its nervous chapters lasts only around 20 minutes and is filmed in real time with a handheld camera and in a single sequence shot. And it is not a quirk of style: the dramatic effect is prodigious and the technical expertise in the realization in some is astonishing.

The series does not fall into the usual Manichean nihilism of apocalyptic dystopias because, although human miseries appear in each chapter, the result of desperation for survival, gestures of solidarity and collaboration are not absent either.

The situations dealt with are individual or collective, often dilemmatic, with very different locations, different characters (with very few exceptions and few links between them) and with strong social and class notes, but without falling into the cliché. Overall the pacing is distressing but never hysterical, and the filmmakers have a knack for making chapters quite different and with room for surprise.

Filmed in 2019, this dystopia directed by Jérémy Bernard, Guillaume Desjardins and Bastien Ughetto (who stars in one of the most terrifying episodes) is prescient in some aspects of the global coronavirus crisis and undoubtedly related to the prevailing capitalist modes of production.

Pay attention to the final titles of each chapter. If you pay attention, you will see that they are revealing.

This is a great miniseries, comprised of 15-20 min long episodes.

Each episode is shot in one take, and this is a great achievement by itself. They are by no means static episodes - they don't take place inside a room, with people sitting down and talking. These are fast, action-packed episodes, where we follow people in different situations after the collapse of our economy and society. Thus, the planning and shooting of the series deserves the greatest credit.

What we take for granted every day in our civilized societies, the flow of goods and services, the civility of people themselves, depend on a great deal of interdependence and abundance of resources. Our global economy acts with the notion that we should grow and expand infinitely, buy more, consume more, and exploit the resources, the people and the world in the process.

We think this can never change. Actually, we don't think about it at all. We continue our roles assigned to us in our everyday lives.

The truth is that it all hangs by a thin thread. It can all change very easily and quickly.

We saw the prequel in the first days of Covid-19, when the supermarkets were depleted of goods, and people were actually fighting over the last items of food or toilet paper.

We depend on the cogs of the machine working perfectly, to survive.

This series gives an enlightening glimpse of how events may unfold when the system stops functioning one day. Recommended.

From the first episode, the show captures the desperation of average people living in the hyper capitalistic world. People just want to continue to live their normal lives, but our normal lives have created a feedback cycle that will end in our self-destruction. There is no escape, and the unsettling feeling in the first episode carries through later heart wrenching stories of survival, desperation, and interspersed pockets of hope.

Highly recommend this show to anyone who has this feeling that modern society cannot continue down as we know it and to see what happens if we do. Just be prepared to be a bit uncomfortable, because the show feels real, and makes you question if you are doing enough to help prevent this type of situation from coming to fruition.

I loved the single take approach, it keeps the show personal further reinforces the hyper realism of the show. The single takes also feel more impactful as each episode reaches its conclusion.

Give it a try, if you can't find a place to stream it, google the name of the show in the subreddit collapse on reddit. That's where I found the subtitled episodes.