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Hot on the vapour trails of his new sci-fi romp Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, go back to where it all began for Luc Besson, with this striking 1983 debut starring his Cinéma du look collaborator Jean Reno in his first feature role.
Before he directed music videos for Isabelle Adjani, pioneered France’s Cinéma du look movement, and scored international hits with La Femme Nikita (1990), The Professional (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997), French stylist Luc Besson was a young, sci-fi-obsessed director making his debut feature with this bravura post-apocalyptic fantasy.
Filmed in stunning monochrome and without dialogue, Besson’s dystopia follows the strange wanderings of a man (played by co-writer Pierre Jolivet) across a nuclear-ravaged landscape that’s rendered in distinct, visionary dimensions by the emerging director. Featuring Besson favourite Jean Reno as a mute strongman, Le Dernier Combat is a memorable debut that connects the director’s comic book youth with his dynamic work to come.
'It is the most tense, mesmerising film; bizarre at times. An amazingly imaginative debut.' – Margaret Pomeranz, At the Movies