aka The Last Journey
(Le Dernier Voyage de Paul W.R.)
France. 2020.
Crew
Director/Screenplay – Romain Quirot, Screenplay Collaboration – d’Antoine Jaunin & Laurent Turner, Producers – David Danesi & Fannie Pailloux, Photography – Jean-Paul Agostini, Music – Etienne Forget, Visual Effects – Digital District (Supervisor – Thomas Duval), Production Design – Olivier Seiler. Production Company – Belga Productions/Digital District/Kinlogy/SofiTVCine7/Manon 10 Company – Belga Productions/Digital District/OCS/Cine+/Kinology/SofiTVCine7/Manon 10.
Cast
Hugo Becker (Paul W.R.). Lya Oussadit-Lessert (Elma), Paul Hamy (Eliott W.R.), Jean Reno (Henri W.R.), Bruno Lochet (Cesar)
Plot
A new planet named The Red Moon has appeared. With Earth’s resources depleted, Henri W.R. has found a means to harness the light from The Red Moon as a new source of fuel called Lumina. However, the Red Moon has started to move closer to Earth and now threatens to destroy it. The Red Moon is protected by an impenetrable magnetic field that does not allow anybody to travel through it. The only person who can pass through the barrier is Henri’s son Paul W.R. who has had his DNA changed by debris from the Red Moon. However, Paul has fled just as he was about to be launched on a mission to intercept the Red Moon. Pursued by security forces, Paul heads out of the city into the desert. When his car runs out of Lumina, he stops at the garage run by Elma but is told he has to wait several days for a replacement supply. Paul instead scavenges from other abandoned vehicles around the area. Elma insists on coming with him, but Paul is pursued by security forces who are determined to bring him back to undergo the mission.
Last Journey of Paul W. R. was a French production. It was the feature-length debut for Romain Quirot who had worked in music video before this and subsequently went on to make the crime film Apaches (2023). Quirot had previously made the basics of the film with the seventeen-minute short The Last Voyage of the Enigmatic Paul W.R. (2015).
In the 1960s, France came up with the idea of the auteur theory where the director is the ‘author’ of the film and the one responsible for the vision that is depicted on screen. There has been a great deal of debate for and against the concept, particularly from American filmmakers who argue that film is a collaborative effort and requires the input of many hands. My tendency is to view filmmaking more akin to a corporate structure where there is one or more hands at the top overseeing the efforts of those below in a pyramid of influence – in some cases, the director has the most creative control (as in a Kubrick, a Scorcese or Spielberg film) and in other cases it is the studio/producers in control where the director is little more than a hired hand (as in the MCU, for instance). It must be said that French Cinema, which is very different to US filmmaking, has been far more encouraging of auteur theory and in allowing the director sole control of the film.
Last Journey of Paul W. R. is an extremely good argument against the validity of auteur theory – that without external constraints and things like script editors that what you end up with is amateurish and/or incomprehensible gibberish that should have never have been granted a budget in the first place (as was often the case during the French New Wave). Last Journey of Paul W. R. is a perfect example of a filmmaker who is attempting to make a science-fiction film with little to no understanding of basic astronomical concepts or even proper story structure.
Elma (Lya Oussadit-Lessert) with Paul W.R. (Hugo Becker) as the Red Moon approaches in the background
The idea of the Red Moon is one where you go okkkay. First of all, it shouldn’t technically be called a moon as it isn’t orbiting any planetary body and should more correctly be referred to as a rogue planet. It also appears much larger than the Earth, which in astronomical terms would mean that Earth would be the moon orbiting it. But I won’t quibble too much there. However, the bizarre thing is that it is said to put out a magnetic field that is impenetrable. Magnetic fields are not like shields in Star Trek – in fact, Star Trek shields shouldn’t work scientifically either – it is simply a type of force applied to another object that will either repel or attract it – and has no more solidity to it than say gravity or an electrical field does. Jupiter has a massive magnetic field – 1400 times more powerful than the one produced by Earth. The downside of this is that it produces a massive amount of radiation that is lethal to anybody as far away as its outer moons. However, nowhere does such a magnetic field make it impossible for any astronaut to pass through should they be suicidal enough to fly right down into Jupiter’s atmosphere,
There is also the idea of Paul W.R. who, for reasons the film never deigns to plausibly establish, has had his DNA changed by some debris from the Red Moon. This has inexplicably made him the sole person on Earth who can venture through the Red Moon’s magnetosphere. The film never explains why he seeks to run away from performing his duty as to not do so would surely be The End of the World. The film also never makes clear exactly what his passing through the impenetrable magnetosphere is meant to achieve – okay, so he’s on the other side of a barrier, what is he meant to do? Persuade the Red Moon to turn away and stop endangering the Earth? Find its controls and turns its path around? This gaping motivational hole just sits there – the end of the film is this utterly lame letdown where he takes off – in a Peugeot hovercar that can apparently fly all the way up to the stratosphere – reaches the barrier, explodes and then the Red Moon magically turns around in its path and no longer endangers the Earth. Even if you ignore the ridiculous science, it is bad writing to have a plot where everything is resolved by seemingly magical things happening with no explanation or foreshadowing.
Certainly, Romain Quirot makes an effort to create an interestingly lived-in future. Details about it are very sparse but there are some interesting visions of landscapes with vehicle bodies and abandoned and rusted buildings everywhere and the odd touch of hi-tech – ever-present holoscreens and the aforementioned hover version of a Peugeot. Quirot borrows a few moves from Luc Besson and has some occasional scenes shooting it out with black-garbed security forces and a climactic car chase. Lya Oussadit-Lessert plays the gamine/waif character that turns up in a good deal of French cinema – Betty Blue (1986), The Fifth Element (1997). For a time, I thought that Last Journey of Paul W.R. might be on the verge of being something culty, but that’s before the vacuity of the plot becomes apparent.
