User reviews

I thought Besson's film managed to do without words what few films have been able to do with them; Capture true human emotions. The main character's struggles, triumphs, set backs, hopes and desires are all so honestly shown that you wonder if he is acting at all. The film has a low budget and is obviously made without the glitz and glamour afforded to most Hollywood productions but that minimalism is what allows this film to transcend the stereotypical Sci-Fi labeling and become a true drama. However calling this film solely a drama would take away from the fantastic post-apocalyptic plot. True this type of movie has been done been before but I think this one captures the joys and sorrows of that type of world possibly better than any other one does.

Shot entirely in black and white and set in a barely inhabited post- apocalyptic world where the atmosphere has rendered humanity mute, Luc Besson's feature length début was nothing short of ambitious. The plot ostensibly follows The Man as he scavenges for parts to keep his light aircraft in repair - venturing out into the wasteland he stumbles across a hospital where he meets The Doctor, a man living in fear of The Brute (played by Jean Reno) who is attempting to gain entry to the hospital and kill the Doctor. Through non-verbal communication, The Man and The Doctor come to help each other in an attempt to survive and keep The Brute at bay. Despite the innovative premise and stark, stylish beauty of Besson's direction, the film moves at an odd pace whereby it's more confusion and intrigue that keeps the viewer watching, rather than for any substance of character or story. The daring decision to have next to no intelligible dialogue throughout doesn't help matters, as the viewer is left to piece together the characters motives without explanation, but it's the score (the epitome of awful 80's synth soundtracks) more than anything else that dates the film and hindered this viewers enjoyment. While still worth checking out for any fans of Besson, the post-apocalyptic genre and cinema in general, it's not the easiest of films to watch, but one that rewards the viewer in spades through Besson's fantastic direction.

I still can't describe what to feel when I received this by the fnac site. Such a rare movie, so little spoken and known, is difficult to find, even to fans, but the contrast betwen past and present is devastating: now I hold a DVD of the movie, with the finest quality possible. As I did in Atlantis, the other rare Besson movie I bought by the internet, I saw this one at home, with all the lights of my dvd and tv turned off, and marveled at the experience. I didn't know what to expect. Wickedly, I always searched some kind of disappointment when I saw a film by Luc Besson I never had seen before. But it never came. This movie was no exception. From the start, I understood that the person who makes a film like this as a first feature is destined to be big in the future. And so it happened. This won several prizes (including the highest prize in a film festival of my country, which makes me proud) and it shows that this movie is preparating many bigger things. This may be the most original after-the-war movie I have ever seen, beating Mad Max in originality and artistic feel. There is not a problem with this movie: its cinematography is genius, as well the perfomances of the actors. I am also proud to say that finally I saw all the movies of my favorite director, and have a copy of almost all of them (Joan of Arc is still waiting for me to buy the DVD). This movie is most of all a work of style and dedication, which makes clear why Luc Besson is a director of my choice: good taste, beautiful framing, excellent use of music (I also marveled at Eric Serra's first feature-length score) and the promise of great achievements. Gaumont did well to bet in its boy-genius, the man who would later change the face of France's and Europe's relation between movies and their public. Let's hope Besson starts working in a new directorial project. I will be the first to cheer it. Until then, I recommend this movie to anyone who need to learn a lesson of how good movies are made with little money. I loved the atmosphere of the movie, which, by its black and white cinematography, suggests us an even more depressed view of the world after the holocaust. This movie works by the sheer magic of movies: showing in pictures what we can't explain by words. And I'm with all the people who wrote comments to this movie and liked it: good choice! A great hug to everyone who sees this and feels that a little of their lives were changed.

Not exactly. This is a most unusual film. Shot in widescreen and black and white, with Dolby stereo and only one whispered bit of dialogue. The world is in ruins, and our main character (credited as "The Man"), makes his escape from a band of looters by stealing their prized possession, a fully charged automobile battery, and uses it to power his ultra-light plane out of the ruins of the city.

In his travels, he comes across a doctor, with whom he communicates non-verbally (apparently, the atmosphere is so polluted, the human race is rendered mute), and confronts another man, a clumsy, self-styled "barbarian of the wastelands" who wields a sword as if it were a broom.

One of Luc Besson's early works, it is as original as it is imaginative. I had the fortune of seeing it on a wide motion picture screen in New York City. I still haven't forgotten it. Yes, I know that the end of the world makes for a strange concept for an art film from France, but Besson makes this unlikely premise work to perfection.

Highly recommended.

Luc Besson's first work is also his first foray in science fiction, a genre to which he will return fourteen years later with "the Fifth Element" (1997). Even if this film was strongly influenced by Hollywood cinema, it is still highly enjoyable. Back in 1983, "le Dernier Combat" reveals Besson's own approach of science fiction. He takes back a threadbare topic and his efforts are discernible to make a stylish work. Shot in widescreen and black and white, a disaster has destroyed virtually all the population from earth and we will never know what was this disaster and why men can't talk any more. Some barbarian hordes were formed. In parallel, a man (Pierre Jolivet) lives on his own and arrives in an unrecognizable Paris where he is received by a doctor (Jean Bouise).

There are no words in Besson's work. The characters' actions and the progression of the events go through looks and gestures. Although the starting point and the backdrop are unnerving, the film has never the look of a despondent one. It seems that the man and the doctor try to reproduce gestures and actions linked to mankind before the disaster. The film opens with the man having sex with an inflatable doll. Later, the doctor tries to make him speak through a machine and he is a painter in his spare time. It's all the more intriguing as these paintings seem to come from the prehistoric times. Following this reasoning, one could argue that the bearded giant (Jean Reno) embodies evil and a threat to the efforts deployed by the man and the doctor to regain what finally made a human being. Ditto for the gang of baddies at the beginning of the film.

The pessimistic whiff that such a film could convey isn't really at the fore and gives way to a glimmer of hope. Personally, the film could have gained with no music at all, except the one the man can hear with his cassette recorder. Luc Besson was to make better and still entrancing films like this one, he also boosted Pierre Jolivet's career as a director who will leave a patchy work behind him in the future: "Force Majeure" (1989), "Simple Mortel" (1991), "ma Petite Entreprise" (1999) or "Filles Uniques" (2003).

Well, I guess I was in the mood for a movie that really grabbed me from the beginning. This movie wasn't it. It plodded along at a pretty slow, deliberate pace for the first 40 minutes, but there wasn't really anything in it that I was terribly interested in--there's an intriguing and mysterious feud between Jean Reno's character and an old man, but more of the first 40 minutes is dominated by the wanderings of the main character, whom I didn't know much about and couldn't really relate to at the time. He wanders around alone for the most part, he doesn't meet anyone; I imagine the director was trying to depict the loneliness of the human condition in this post-apocalyptic world or something, which is all good, but I still wish he'd trimmed it down from 40 minutes to 15, because it can get incredibly boring.

But after those 40 minutes, things start to get very interesting. I guess I won't really say more than that because I don't want to spoil anything. So if you've seen the first 15-30 minutes of this movie and are thinking about turning it off (like I was), just stick with it--it gets a lot better.

One of the most interesting things I found about this movie was the fact that it had no dialogue whatsoever, which really made me have to think about what was happening, how characters were feeling and what their motivations were, why things were how they were in this post-apocalyptic world, all of which gives the story a lot of room for audience interpretation. And it's amazing how much more satisfying a movie is when the actors aren't telling you exactly what's going on.

Great movie. Post-apocalyptic films kick ass. This one is no exception. Kept up the pace and interest without a speck of dialogue (mainly through some good character development). The fight between Reno and the Hero was tight. I also liked the use of cave paintings and medieval-like weapons to show how primitive and savage mankind had become without their technology and guzzaline. The connection between the beginning and end was a little spacey, that is, I had a hard time understanding the distances between the hotel and the opening sequence. In sum, kick ass character progression, design, story without the cushion of dialogue, and most importantly, the always appreciated desolate scenery of a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Pierre Jolivet plays a Don Quixote character, unable to speak, living in a world incompatible with modern life. He trusts to his homemade weaponry - helmet, sleeves, and spear - made out of hubcaps, seat cushions, and discarded office furniture. Just as Don Quixote rode Rocicante, "The Man" rides his contraption (literally) transcending the lost lives caught up the harsh and demeaning modern world - soaring above the earth, away from the plight of modern man. Both characters ride in search of adventure in an effort to right the wrongs of the world. Both characters are guardian knights of values unfamiliar to most of the other characters in the story.

Unlike Cervantes's tale, in this movie we identify more directly with the anachronistic ideals of the main character. We can only compare this alien and forbidding landscape to the lush and beautiful world we live in. Our frame of reference is the fantasy realm which the lone knight perhaps remembers. Our vision would be one which expects the main character to triumph, to vanquish, to change his world (for the better) back into a world of plenty that no longer exists.

We look at this movie and see a true knight among a world of humans-as-animals. Don Quixote considered himself a true knight among animals.

With Cervantes's tale we can only see the dreamer, without really understanding the scope of his anachronistic displacement. In Besson's and Jolivet's tale we see the new world from the eyes of Don Quixote, because we value the same visions and ideals as the crusading main character.

I am a long time fan of Luc Besson's work, and for about as long as I've known his name, I've also looked for this movie. I tried looking for this movie all over California for over four years. this past summer i took a trip to Europe, one of my missions on this trip was to at least see this movie. long story short, I bought it and watched it in France! I was blown away, it completely made my trip and i finally feel content that i have seen Luc Besson's first work. absolutely amazing character development, very thought provoking, great acting and the ultimate concept movie. if you are a concept movie fan this is one of the most original and classic. I feel as though it is a rare treat to see a movie like this one, its risky, its unorthodox, and ultimately its just downright unique. if you are a Luc Besson fan, its indeed a must see, however, whether your a Besson fan or not, its definitely an important work, overall a great contribution to the immortal art of cinema.

A very impressive first film, made on a tiny budget, this highly imaginative, sometimes darkly funny view of a post-apocalyptic world where no one can speak is beautifully shot and designed, elements that would become hallmarks of Besson's style.

There isn't much of a plot, we just observe as several male characters struggle against the elements and each other to survive in the meager pickings of remains of the civilized world. (For much of the film, we don't know if there are any women left at all). Sand has overtaken and filled office buildings and water is in scarce supply. If the film was made now, one could guess global warning was the culprit of human decline, but like much else, what happened in the past is allowed to remain a mystery. And how nice to avoid endless exposition and just allow the story to be.

For all the 'action' implied by the title, this is no "Mad Max". While there are a few quite well done fights, much of the film is given over to slower, smaller more human moments, most touchingly, when people try – against all odds – to connect and form bonds.

There are weaknesses. The film can feel thin, even drawn out at times, and the score can be downright awful. Why this beautiful, sad, macabre film got an early 80s poppy disco-synth score is beyond me. I'm sure Besson had his reasons, but it's been a long time since a score so aggressively took me out of a film. There are also some logic questions that start to become bothersome. E.g. It's one thing to postulate that for some reason no one can speak, but since it's clear they can read and remember language (and want to speak) why does no one ever write a note? A small thing, but when you leave so much open to question, you do run the risk of those questions becoming vexing.

All that said, I enjoyed the film a good deal, event if I was a bit disappointed, when all was said and done,that it didn't pack more of an emotional or intellectual punch.

It's hard to use words for this movie, since it contains none itself.

But the images it conveys, both powerful and sweeping, are ones which remind us why we watch movies. And you might be saying "Well, Leonard Maltin doesn't like it, it can't be that good.." But you're wrong. See this movie. French cinematic brilliance en ensemble.

I'm afraid that although I started viewing Le Dernier Combat wanting to like it,(because I'm a fan of post apocalyptic films like The Matrix, Omega Man, The Road Warrior, etc...),this film just doesn't deliver. It's very odd, but not in a good way. People for some reason can physically no longer speak. OK. No subtitles to read. The visuals are not very interesting, and being in black and white may be more because of the film's low budget than an artistic choice. Bright colours has been Luc Besson's choice since he has the budget to use them. The film is so spare as it is, that colour may have given it that extra bit of interest it lacks, if simply to dazzle the eye. Would the Road Warrior have been the same in black and white? The story too, is not that compelling. The characters lack depth, because of the absence of dialogue, and their actions often seem quite unusual and off the wall. I can see where this film will have it's fans because it may be considered more artistic than others of its genre, but the art is again another attempt to hide the films major shortcomings. That said, art is in the eye of the beholder, so see it and decide for yourself!

Le Dernier Combat is an interesting and memorable take on the familiar postapocalyptic scenario, and its primary conceit -- its near-total lack of dialogue -- is effective, but ultimately it's a stylish but overly familiar "lone hero of the apocalypse" story without much to add to our understanding of human nature.

The absence of dialogue in the film, while interesting, is not quite original -- it was done 20 years earlier in the Twilight Zone episode "Two" (starring Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery), which like this film took place in postapocalyptic wasteland; and that story, compressed as it was into a half-hour episode, carried an emotional heft largely lacking in Luc Besson's take.

The problem with this film, as with most of Besson's work, is its essential shallowness; while Le Dernier Combat is undeniably a visually appealing work which showcases Besson's ample talents as a maker of stylish, humorous and thrilling action films (Le Femme Nikita, Leon), and while it does feature some genuinely touching and quirky moments, Besson's ability to plumb the depths of human nature falls far short of what a story of this kind demands.

The other major problem with this film, for a contemporary audience, is the music. Le Dernier Combat is saddled with a laughably inappropriate early 80's jazz-disco score that practically drains any dramatic impact from scenes in which it appears. Jaunty dance music isn't quite what one expects in a scene of tragic human suffering. Even Tangerine Dream would be preferable to Eric Serra's work on this film.

Le Dernier Combat is a film worth seeing, if only so that Luc Besson fans can get an early glimpse of the Besson style in its infancy, and there is no denying the appeal of its performances and the impressive fact of how visually dynamic the film is given its rock-bottom budget. But science fiction fans expecting a powerful human drama should lower their expectations.

With his first attempt Besson knocks it out of the park!

Le Dernier Combat is an odd friendship tale and love story told with no words set in a post apocalyptic world that looks like no other. We are carried through this miserable landscape with unparalleled lightness and ease. It looks attractive enough for us to want to live there, albeit deserted and rundown. Besson inserts it with interesting new stuff for the main character to use - a self made plane, cassette player and a blow up doll. In fact every film in the genre introduces something new to the post apocalyptic world that is used in following movies. However Besson got his artistic touch all over this one. Fast, pacey episodes are followed by slow almost poetic moments of observation. It is breathtaking and visually stunning.

It is really hard to tell the humanity in characters that can't speak and only moo and make gestures. But Besson makes them draw wall paintings and eat on table-cloths using forks and knives. The Doctor and The Man really grow on each other and in the end The Doctor reveals his biggest secret. Buildig up of characters without using dialog is quite challenging and masterfully done.

A genius is born!

A poetic examination of the human condition performed without dialogue. The anti-hero, The Man builds a contraption to escape a band of marauders, out of the wastland of what was once a civilization, to the ruins of the city to scavenge for his survival. There he crosses pathes with The Brute, brilliantly played by Jean Reno, of "The Professional" and "Mission: Impossible" fame. The Man is rescued by a crazy old genius who lives in a fortress of his own design. By using their wits, The Man and the old genius are able to keep the Brute and his ilk at bay, but they realise it is only a matter of time before their defenses are compromised, so they make a break for it. This is a strongly understated tale of the desparate struggle for life, with excellent action scenes and clever humor. Of all of the movies of its kind, like "Road Warrior", "Omega Man", and even "Ultimate Warrior" (featuring Yul Brenner as a buff knife-fighter), "Le Dernier Combat" is the most artfully crafted. Copies of the video are hard-to-find, I would give my left eye ball for one. If your local art house ever has a revival of this film, I heartily recommend that you break any engagement to able to be able to see it big.

This is a quirky film. It is a mixture of serious and funny sections.

The plot is very flimsy, not much happens from start to finish.

There is a little action, the fight scenes are well done and have flashes of humour.

The acting is OK, there is no dialogue so the actors don't have too much to do.

The first part of the ending, the one involving the doctor and the thug, is quite will done, there are a few surprises and some interesting scenes.

The second part of the ending is less convincing and doesn't make much sense.

Watchable for the weirdness but no real quality.

This movie is probably unlike anything you've ever seen. In mood and style it's reminiscent of the groundbreaking 1962 "La Jetée" (which was the basis for the American adaptation "12 Monkeys"). Plot wise, it's a bit like the obscure "A Boy and His Dog" (1975) with a setting similar to "Mad Max" (1979). Thematically, it reminded me a lot of the classic "Papillon" (1973) the way it focuses on 1 individual's tireless efforts and ingenuity against an impossible environment. I might also mention the Jeunet-Caro "Delicatessen" (1991), minus the humor, or their short film "Bunker of the Last Gunshots" (1993). But overall "The Last Battle" is a one-of-a-kind, hard to compare.

Shot in crisp, antiseptic black & white, despite the grimy setting of the story, the entire film is without any dialogue (we are led to believe that in this post apocalyptic future, there's something wrong with people's vocal cords). As a result, this is a challenging film to piece together solely from images, actions and facial expressions. But once we start to grasp what's going on, who's who, and why's why, it's a deeply rewarding experience.

I won't say much about the plot because the fun part is figuring it out. I'll just say that the story is set in the future, in a ruined world full of shattered buildings, endless deserts, and every-man-for-himself savagery amongst the few survivors. No one seems to have any purpose other than surviving the moment, although there are interesting clusters of gangs with their own hierarchy and rituals. Our protagonist is a complete loner, but midway he meets a mysterious recluse who is still attached to the old world civility, humanity and an ironic appreciation for the arts in this barren wasteland. At the same time, another character enters the story: a formidable antagonist who will stop at nothing to get what he wants (and what he wants, we ultimately learn, is extremely disturbing).

A lot of post-apocalyptic films, and scifi in general, suffer from trying to over-explain the situation, and they inadvertently become less believable because of it. How many times has a silly discussion of the "space time continuum" ruined an otherwise credible plot? Not here. Here we see how a futuristic story should be done to achieve realism. Keep it to a bare minimum, leave the backstory to the imagination of the audience, focus exclusively on the characters and their actions without the distraction of dialogue; that's all we need. As a result, this 80s futuristic flick is more believable than any modern scifi, and it will stand the test of time for decades if not centuries to come. If people are still around to see it.

This is probably the most uninvolving film I've ever seen. I watched it because I have a soft spot for Leon (everything else Besson has done has been just awful, in my opinion, with the exception of the script for Wasabi) and Jean Reno. It's a testament to just how bad this film is that Reno, one of the most charismatic and effortlessly affable actors (admittedly he's just starting out here) can't make this film, or the moments in which he is on screen, watchable.

It's all very film-schooly: black and white, no dialogue, people doing things for no apparent reason, people chasing each other while in turn being chased by a shaky camera. And, predictably, none of it is entertaining.

It's not a "French Mad Max" as some people have claimed (actually, I think they mean "Mad Max 2") - that is a superficial comparison based only on the fact that both films have a post-apocalyptic setting, and is just the kind of comment you'd expect from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Mad Max 2 was pulsating, Mad Max 2 was exciting, Mad Max 2 was worth your time - Le Dernier Combat is none of these.

I know it's supposed to be cool to like arty black-and-white French films and equally cool to say you saw something in them that other people did not (or you managed to sit through it without feeling drowsy), which is why I wouldn't trust anyone who claims to like Le Dernier Combat, because I see nothing of worth in it whatsoever; it asks for so much and gives nothing back. I found myself drifting from it after about five minutes and it never did anything to regain my full attention. Anyone who can sit through it undistracted isn't human, or, at the very most, is psychotic. (Actually, they're probably just trying to seem "cool").

This film was shot a few years after the Mad Max and in some way it does seem similar. However, it is a very innovative and refreshing film. "Le Dernier Combat" has no dialogues, but it does have sound. It was also shot in black and white and the total budget was $500,000! It is very refreshing to see a good story well told, on a shoe string budget. This was Eric Serra's first film score, Luc Besson's first feature, but everything came together thanks to Luc Besson's genius and creativity. Excellent acting on everyone's part (especially Jean Boise, Jean Reno and Pierre Jolivet) helped a great deal. It seems that French actors just can't do a bad job... The film is about a loner in the middle of nowhere who somehow befriends another loner in that weird post apocalyptic world. Their interaction (even if non verbal), as well as the drama around them kept me glued to the screen. The occasional funny moments were great and contrasted well with the dark story. I consider this to be Bessons second best film (after Nikita). One can only wish that all the low budget independent films turn out to be this good.

Belonging to the subgenre of post-apocalyptic future films, it is a stylistic and very very intimate installment. The most noticed element of the film is its silence; no one speaks. I don't think Besson, despite what is evident in most of his later work, meant it as any kind of cool gimmick. I think what makes it so clever and so effective is the fact that with no other way of communicating, everyone has to read each other based on intuition and conveying of emotion, no matter how slight. Though I wasn't glued to the screen, upon reflection I see that it's a very touching and sensitive perspective on human nature. Its vehicle is the stylized sci-fi movie. Part of its reflection on the nature of the human world is that each of its humans is not necessarily played as a perfect human being: The hero, a lone drifter in the desolate new world, is taken in by an older recluse, who refuses to keep his part of an exchange of food between him and a husky, brutish character played by Jean Reno, and so Reno tries everything he can, predominantly using brute force, to get what he wants. So, the antagonist is right, though not a good person, and the protagonist and his sympathetic foil are both wrong, though they are both good people.

It's shot in a clear and crisp black and white, edited and captured in a low-key yet spry and small-scale approach, and its actors are very real. How can they not be? They, like their characters are left with the bare necessities of communication. This is one of the few truly good films that Luc Besson has written. His earlier work is almost always better than the fluff he churns out now.

In 1983, a young auteur filmmaker named Luc Besson made his directorial debut with the science fiction film "Le dernier combat". It is apparent from his first feature that he wanted to be a different kind of director. His efforts would pay off at the end, helping create the movement of the cinéma du look.

"Le dernier combat" is a very special modern film. It is shot in black and white - much like the other auteur's, Truffaut's movie, "Vivement dimanche !" the same year- , and there is no audible speech. Sure, there is music, but the action is progressed through the body movements of the actors.

The film shows a post-apocalyptic society where all institutions have disappeared and everyone lives for themselves. The main hero of the story, The Man (played by Pierre Jolivet) struggles to survive and makes weapons from everyday objects, in order to fight his enemy, The Brute (Jean Reno). It's The Man striving to remain alive in such an aggressive environment that we see during this relatively short film.

The black and white cinematography gave the movie its distinct character, differentiating it from other colorful blockbusters of the time. It also gave it its seriousness. "Le dernier combat" is no action film, full of explosions of which the orange smoke rises high above. It features no huge lush settings. It's a debutant director's vision of a world in which nothing resembling a real society exists. All is somber, depressing, dangerous. And for this somberness to become apparent, black and white needs to be used. Colour makes the contradiction between the good and the villainous, the civilized and the primitive difficult to portray without just showing a visual spectacle. Here, the ideas are what matters.

Besson's direction was good, but aesthetically unappealing to my eyes. While being suitably slow-paced, showing The Man's every moment of his quest to survive, it becomes dull after the first thirty minutes, just dragging on and leading to a disappointing climax. His choice to leave the film soundless was interesting, but rendered it quite difficult to follow. Nevertheless, the intricate ideas of Besson were too complex to be communicated through words.

And which are these ideas? Besson examines plenty of topics, the most important being the behaviour of humans in the state of nature and how the disappearance of institutions in the society. The state of nature is the state in which humans live without the rules of a society, like in a jungle. The idea was proposed by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who famously characterised the life in it as "nasty, brutish and short". Certainly, life in "Le dernier combat" is that, and much more. Humans no longer trust each other. Everyone could be an enemy, a killer. The Man is alone, walking through the ruins of civilization searching for tools and food, being only able to grunt, much like an animal. Gone is the spirit of collaboration and compassion characterising modern times. Now, the rule of the strong is dominant, and showing sympathy for someone could be fatal.

Concerning the role of institutions, Besson makes it clear with this work that they are absolutely needed. Otherwise, everyone would turn against the other. Without a higher authority to exercise control over them, the people would just battle all the time for dominance. This is another idea of Hobbes, the so-called Leviathan. The Leviathan is an authority stronger than the other people that functions as a mitigator of violence. Because there is someone more powerful, the aggressor doesn't risk to attack and peace is kept. In the world of "Le dernier combat", this authority doesn't exist, and the humans let their instincts dictate the way they act, leading to utter chaos. Still, I doubt Besson supports Hobbes's version of the Leviathan, a state that constantly surveils its citizens so that they won't do any harm to each other. This would contradict his later films that have the weak as protagonists against stronger authorities ("Nikita", "Subway"). What he wanted to show was that in a post-apocalyptic society, in which no institution is present, even the most benevolent of people can't easily collaborate with others. He doesn't treat that cynically, he laments that. Even in the universe of "Le dernier combat", there are teams of people working together, but they are rare. Media using the trope of the post-apocalyptic society have people collaborate, thus showing that the spirit of collaboration can come alive again, with some effort. The people in Besson's film haven't found it, and remain primitive, but the choice to work together may still exist in the back of their minds.

Their primitive nature is also underlined by the fact they are nameless. The name is one of the basic characteristics of a person, how they are addressed by the others. We even have different expectations for someone based on their name. When social interaction is nonexistent, the name is useless. This trait of one's personal identity doesn't need to exist ,because so does personal identity itself. In a primitive nature, no one is more special than the others. They are all weak beings, struggling to remain alive in a threatening world.

The music represented this primitiveness in a special way. It essentially used the complete opposite of a simple instrument in order to create plain sounds: the synthesiser. The synthesiser was back then the symbol of musical modernity. By using synthesiser-driven melodies, the composer, Eric Serra, created an oxymoron, since he gifted the film a soundtrack that perfectly captured the jungle-like competition for survival through the most state-of-the-art musical instrument. The old and the new combined.

In conclusion, Luc Besson's "Le dernier combat" is an intriguing, yet overly ambitious work that shows the contrast between order and chaos in human society. It is worth watching as a divergent example of the usually light-hearted, and commercial French 80's cinema.

Remember that this came out before Gulf War I, which gave us Werner Herzog's "Lessons of Darkness".

Le Dernier Combat is not "Sci Fi". It's more like Judgment. I've watched it at least a dozen times. It really is a fitting companion to Herzog's "Lessons of Darkness": "And in that time, men will seek death, but they will not find it, for death will flee from them."

That someday, alas, may be today, in Iraq.

But, back to Le Dernier Combat, make sure to watch thru the very last second of the film. I wouldn't call it a "surprise ending", but it is something you'll miss if you just assume the end won't be anything more than what you will already have seen.