Paul W.R.'s Last Journey

Romain Quirot has created the perfect cinematic equivalent of French comic books, which are also fascinating due to their diverse worlds and are packed with captivating visions with panels depicting characters in tense poses while at the same time exuding pathos, fatefulness and bombast in which logic takes a back seat. The Last Journey of Paul W.R. thus enchants with its visual imagery of a post-apocalyptic, futuristic Earth. Here the tradition of Métal hurlant comic books is combined with the heritage of cinéma-du-look, thus creating a style based on comic-book characterisation and exaggeration. The narrative is composed of fragmentary episodes that do little to develop the overall story, or rather only delay its denouement at the cost of presenting viewers with another eye-pleasing and, in its details, imaginative slice of the movie’s world. There are few elements that make sense here, from the self-serving casting and complete underuse of Jean Reno to the fact that we find ourselves in a world where it doesn’t rain and the oceans have dried up, yet no one is thirsty, sweats or drinks in any of the scenes. The Last Journey of Paul W.R. thus has the potential to evoke both anger and enchantment, which in the end depends mainly on whether viewers disdain the lack of logic and blatantly formulaic nature of the film or, conversely, accept those aspects as camp and enjoy their striking guilelessness and grandiose theatricality. (11.10.2021)