TIFF '24: "Else" and "U Are the Universe" find Love in the Apocalypse
Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 9:30PM 
For a body horror nightmare, ELSE can be surprisingly beautiful.
It says something about the state of the world, or, at the very least, the collective mood, that the apocalypse is a prevalent concept among contemporary artists. At TIFF this year, several films tackled this fatalistic topic head-on, exploring cosmic dereliction through a litany of genres and registers, from high-budget passion projects to indie experiments. Last time, I broached the topic of Joshua Oppenheimer's divisive narrative feature debut, The End. Now, it's time for two other examples. There's Thibault Emin's feature-length adaptation of a pandemic short, Else. Secondly, an unexpected sci-fi proposition from Ukraine of all places, Pavlo Ostrikov's U Are the Universe. Both are love stories of sorts…