The End — trailer. Watch on YouTube.
An international airport promises movement while asking its occupants to spend much of their time waiting. Niki Lindroth von Bahr makes that contradiction the setting of The End, a stop-motion short in which animal characters navigate a world of consumer comforts, institutional pressure, and approaching catastrophe.
The official synopsis introduces a frog pilot unable to contact the control tower, a badger businessman in duty-free shopping, mole inspectors questioning a fly, and a dolphin employee close to burnout. Each figure occupies a different part of the same system. Their species make them strange to look at, but their frustrations are unmistakably human. [1]
A terminal suspended between destinations
Lindroth von Bahr connects the airport to the waiting souls of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. She describes a place where luxury retail exists alongside the threat of detention, and where travelers are surrounded by conveniences without necessarily feeling comfortable or free. [2]
The setting gives the film a strong organizing idea. Its characters can be physically close while remaining separated by duties, status, and private worries. A miniature terminal lets those relationships become architecture: counters, corridors, and barriers determine how bodies move through the space.
The human behavior inside the animal
The director’s animal characters continue an approach familiar from The Burden and Something to Remember. As she explains, their sometimes-comical appearances can make human behavior easier to recognize and empathize with. The distance created by an unfamiliar body becomes a route back to familiar emotions. [2]
The film developed over nearly four years, and Lindroth von Bahr says the death of her father and the birth of her second child in the same month affected its atmosphere and evolving story. That context gives the terminal’s suspended existence a personal dimension without reducing its characters to a single explanation. [2]
The film credits Lindroth von Bahr and Jen Silverman with the screenplay, Nicklas Nilsson with sets, Hans Appelqvist with music, and Henry Moore Selder and the director with editing. The voice cast includes Alexander Skarsgård, Anna Mouglalis, Noomi Rapace, and Denis Lavant. [3]
The Sweden-France-Denmark co-production brings together Malade AB, Les Valseurs, and Wired Fly, with Film i Väst and SVT also involved. The behind-the-scenes photographs below expose the physical work behind the terminal: the relationship between the miniature world, its makers, and the equipment used to bring it to the screen. [1]
The End‘s airport is a particularly apt setting for puppet animation. It is a controlled environment built around the movement of bodies, with people waiting for permission to proceed. The film turns that familiar arrangement into a darkly comic place to consider where everyone is going, and what they are doing while they wait.
Images from the production
The End: film and behind-the-scenes photographs courtesy of Film i Väst. Production: Malade AB, Les Valseurs, and Wired Fly, with Film i Väst and SVT. [2]
References
- Les Valseurs — Official synopsis from co-producer Les Valseurs.
- Cartoon Brew — Production interview and accompanying imagery.
- Festival de Cannes — The Cannes film record.
