[4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH
screens Thursday June 21st at 8:00 pm and Saturday June 23rd at 9:15
pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Bob
Ignizio
In director Abel Ferrara's apocalyptic
4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH, not only is the world ending, but we
have to spend humanity's final moments with pretentious New York
artist types. It seems Al Gore was more or less right, as global
warming takes its final toll on the planet. Oddly, the end of the
world is nice enough to wreak its havoc on a precise schedule,
seemingly producing no serious ill effects until 4:44 am on the night
the film takes place on.
One would think there might be some
discomfort and chaos leading up to that moment, but not in Ferrara's
film. However, as artist and recovering heroin addict Cisco (Willem
DaFoe) walks around on his roof, we see New York traffic zip along
the streets in an orderly manner. We do witness a suicide, and the
TV, perpetually on in the loft Cisco shares with his painter
girlfriend Skye (Shannen Leigh), tells us the end is nigh, but
overall people seem to have accepted the inevitable a lot better than
one might expect.
