Tommy Snöberg Söderberg 
Being the last of your kind must be the greatest nightmare of all. Knowing that no one can come after you once your own life has ended. There is something deeply charged about those words that I can’t quite put my finger on. But to be honest, my interest in this film was initially sparked by its cover. I don’t know if I had Life of Pi in mind, because there is undeniably something about it that reminds me of it.
It is the wild animal in relation to the human being that I am thinking of, of course. In this one, however, this is a considerably more fleeting phase than in Life of Pi.
The film takes place 30,000 years ago, and that alone is quite an achievement, I think. The starting point is the fact that it is still unclear why the Neanderthals died out. Whether Homo sapiens simply exterminated them or whether disease was involved, we can only speculate. Watching the film, you may get one possible explanation of how it all happened. You have to think a little for yourself.
But the most important thing about the film is not the extinction, or the fact that someone is actually the last to die out. It has to be that way, after all; if someone is first, someone also has to be last! What is interesting is how the sense of alienation is portrayed. I really like the parallels one can draw with modern society, which fears anything that does not fit within the boundaries of what is considered “normal.” Are you somehow worth less because you look grotesque or because you don’t have the same intellect as “everyone” else? Humanity is governed to a great extent by elitism, whether we like it or not. At least that is what I thought the film was about until I realized that it was actually a love story not unlike the one told in Beauty and the Beast.
We have two completely different individuals, a Neanderthal—the last one—and an early Homo sapiens. Perhaps not the first, but still from the early stages of evolution. We get to hear how each of them has thoughts about the world around them and, of course, about the other. It is incredibly interesting how differently one can perceive the world. The only thing I have to object to is that it is in French. It is, of course, a French film, and that is not the problem. It would have been just as bad in English or any other language. The problem is that it just feels wrong to have such an understandable language at the dawn of evolution. I should point out, however, that it is only their thoughts that are conveyed in this way, not dialogue between the Neanderthal and/or Homo sapiens. Obviously, this is necessary to make the narrative comprehensible, but it creates a strange effect that doesn’t quite sit right in my head.
The makeup and environments are absolutely fantastic. I have no idea how they managed to create the scene where AO fights the polar bear. It looks incredibly real. If you watch it a few times, you could probably find sequences that reveal its secret, but it is undeniably well hidden.
The ending is inevitable, but the journey there is exceptionally interesting and moving. It is a magnificent film that clearly deserves to be watched with the utmost reverence.
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