The Collapse: The Frenzied Series That Places Us In The Total Bankruptcy Of Our System

El collapso is a series by the independent audiovisual production company Les Parasites . The series imagines a society after the collapse of the current system, where everyone must fight for their survival. Collapsologists predict it for the next few years; however, if the collapse really did happen tomorrow, how would we react?

Each of the eight sequence-shot episodes takes place in a different location and features individuals struggling against the collapse of our industrial civilization. The realism of the situations and the rhythm of the chapters are impressive, which do not need much more than 20 minutes to immerse the viewer in the plot.

At the gas station, drivers fight for the last drops of gasoline. In the supermarket, customers roam the nearly empty shelves. Less spectacular is the arrival at a retirement home where caregivers no longer know how to feed their residents and where fear triggers drama. However, this anguish that the series projects, does it inspire action and commitment?

Collapse

The series does not specify what exactly the collapse consists of. The idea was that it would happen quickly enough to focus on its consequences and awaken a sense of urgency throughout the chapters.

In this post-collapse world, where the state has lost all forms of authority, only the law of the strongest prevails. The wealthiest get by, the others are forced to fend for themselves and cooperate with varying degrees of success: the scarcity of resources turns everyone into potential looters or murderers.

However, it is not only the plot that is motivating in The Collapse. It is the tension created by the sequence shot that causes you to not be able to stop watching the episodes in a single night, despite the consequences of insomnia.

The collapse: would we be like this in reality?

The audiovisual binge occurs because we want to know how people are doing. And that’s when the fictional reality effect fully works: the collapse is so realistic that one imagines it will happen like this. The problem is that it is a story that tells of individualism and violence. Each character is forced to do totally immoral things, which in other circumstances they would not do or would not justify.

That’s when you understand that The Collapse is not just another science fiction series. That he does not propose how to relate a dystopia that sounds distant to us. What’s more, it is strangely familiar to us. Political debates in which no one talks about the environment or if they do, it is to criticize the ideas of the other. The scientist also appears who talks about stopping the catastrophe now, in a radical way. As it happens in reality, nobody hears it.

Nobody wants to change their individual behavior. Governments, supported by the people, will do nothing to protect us. They already have an alternative. The viewer knows all this; it is what produces the most fear. The familiarity with some situations, the strange “déjà vu” of many recipes for climate change left in sight.

But, is the narrative transmitted through fear conducive to involving citizens in individual and collective change? With this question arises another, do we really have time to design one?

The ideas that made El Collapse roll

Les Parasites is a collective founded by former students of the International School of Audiovisual Creation and Production (EICAR) in Paris. In order to maintain its independence, Les Parasites is financed mainly with a Tipeee account. He produces short films and distributes them for free.

Thanks to this independence, he has been able to carry out works such as Artificial Love or La Boucherie Éthique, the latter related to climate change and livestock, which was a good speaker for the ecological problems that occur in the sector.

The issue of climate change and its consequences has been of interest to this French producer, Les parasites , for a long time. In October 2018, they conducted a cross interview for YouTube between one of the founders of collapsology Pablo Servigne and the astrophysicist Jacques Blamont.

For these committed directors, it’s time to stop playing the ostrich in the face of the climate threat. The last episode of the series is a fierce criticism of the politics of small steps and the brutal indifference of people towards this subject.

In The Collapse , its directors seem to shoot a story based on the Olduvai theory, which states that industrial civilization will collapse around 1930. From that starting point, the episodes awaken in the viewer a sense of urgency and unease.

In the series, people are seen more inclined towards mutual aid than other post-apocalyptic classics, such as Mad Max or The Road. Because it is not a competition. The collapse is already underway and our only option is to choose how to deal with it. In Spain, you can watch this series through the Filmin platform.