Trailer for The Last Men, based on an idea by Jacques Perrin

David Oelhoffen (Frere Enemies) films legionnaires of the French army having to extricate themselves from an imminent massacre by joining a base located 300 km away.

On March 9, 1945, the Japanese attacked the French garrisons in Indochina. In conflict with China, they took advantage of France’s defeat against Hitler to occupy French Indochina. They thus dealt a fatal blow to France’s colonial presence in South-East Asia. Hunted by the enemy, a division of legionnaires, already weakened, rushes into the heart of the jungle to reach the allied bases more than 300 km away.

Director, David Oelhoffen (Far from Men, Enemy Brothers) was directly inspired by the scenario of Jacques Perrinbefore his disappearance in April 2022:

“He (Jacques Perrin) was looking for a director for a project that he had already been carrying out for several years. He had seen Far from men, the film that I had just finished and which had points in common with his project. A story of men disrupted by war against a backdrop of colonization, in this case the Algerian war in Far from men and Indochina for The Last Men“, said the filmmaker in the press release.

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The director noted the absence of women in his feature film, and for good reason, it is a film which focuses on a group of men exposed to a historical impasse:

“I wanted to film a group of men who are representatives of a world which is heading towards its doom, a historical impasse which is inscribed in bodies. They have nowhere to go, but they must keep moving.“

Jacques Perrin And David Oelhoffen did not want actors known to the general French public:

“We also needed, of course, foreign actors. We are in the Legion. (…) Our choice for the three main characters fell on Guido Caprino who is Italian, remarkable in the series “Il Miracolo”Andrzej Chyra, a Polish actor who played in the theater in France alongside Isabelle Huppert, and Nuno Lopes, who is a Portuguese actor very well known in his country and who is starting an international career.”

The Last Men will be released in theaters on February 21, 2024.

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