Norman Reedus credited as playing...
Kirby
- Kirby: You know, I've read your review twice on the plane, and I still have no idea what this movie's about.
- Meyers: Hans Backovic was a terrorist. He abused that trust we place in filmmakers. He didn't want to hurt his audience, he wanted to destroy them completely.
- Kirby: I've seen extreme gore and it never made me crazy or violent. What is it about La Fin Absolue du Monde that is so dangerous?
- Meyers: Backovic was brilliant.
- Kirby: Yeah, but all that violence in the theater, that was all exaggerated, right?
- Meyers: If anything, the incident was downplayed. I watched four people die. It smelled like a slaughterhouse. The center aisle was slick with blood. Backovic knew what he was doing. When Stravinsky's "The Right of Spring" premiered to riots, it was an accident. La Fin Absolue du Monde was no accident. He told me so.
- Kirby: Wait. You spoke to Backovic?
- Kirby: There's a chance that there still may be a print out there. I was hired to find it.
- Meyers: To what purpose?
- Kirby: To show it.
- Meyers: You should know what you're getting into. You're right. The film is still alive. Even if they tried to destroy it, they couldn't. Some films are meant to be seen. These -
- [handing audiotapes and headphones to Kirby]
- Meyers: - these will change your life. Now promise me. Promise me, when you find the film, you'll let me see it again. I've dreamed about it every night for 30 years, laying eyes on it again. Once you start this, you can't just shake it off and walk away. It gets inside you.
- Kirby: What do you know about Patton League?
- Henri Cotillard: The cinematographer?
- Kirby: Yeah. You think he can help me?
- Henri Cotillard: A tragic story, that. He went blind after they made the movie. As I understand, he won't even speak Backovic's name. The last person to ask him about "La Fin Absolue du Monde" needed six stitches from where League smacked him with his cane.
- Kirby: What's with all the mystery? There's a wall of silence around this film, around Backovic's whole life! If I could just talk to him for a second...
- Henri Cotillard: He's dead.
- Kirby: But there's no records that he's dead.
- Henri Cotillard: Trust me. Backovic is quite dead.
- Kirby: Well, who told you that? His family? His friends? Anybody maybe you could introduce me to?
- Henri Cotillard: I'm sorry, I can tell you no more.
- Kirby: I don't understand anything that's happening to me. Last night I saw something I can't...
- Henri Cotillard: A circle? Huh? Like the reel change in a movie?
- Kirby: Yeah.
- Henri Cotillard: Then it's started. You're already in it. It's only going to get worse from here.
- Kirby: What's started? What's happening to me?
- Henri Cotillard: The more you look for this film, the more you will see those burns. You'll pay for every step closer you'll take. I'm trying to do you a favor. I'm telling you to walk away because I like you, Kirby. I've been where you are right now. I've felt that same building curiosity, like an unscratchable itch. I had to know. I had to see it.
- [Henri pulls his left hand out of his jacket pocket. It is burned, withered, the fingers seamed together]
- Henri Cotillard: I was the projectionist at a private screening in 1988. The faces in that room. Famous, beautiful people from all over Europe. When I threaded the film into the projector, I saw those same dots you described. And when I actually started it running, I lost my nerve. I looked away. It was playing right there, right in front of me, and I was too frightened to watch. When the screaming started and the smell of blood hit me, I tried to stop the film. The projector wouldn't shut off, and I grabbed the film to rip it out, and then I saw those same circles. And... I don't know. I must have blacked out. Time seemed to drop away. When I came to, the film was over and my hand... Look.
- Kirby: Do you have a print of "La Fin Absolue du Monde"?
- Katja: That's not what you want to know. You want to know if the stories about the film are true.
- Kirby: Are they?
- Katja: Yes. Unfortunately. Why are you looking for the film?
- Kirby: I'm being paid to.
- Katja: [laughing] That is just an excuse. If someone paid you to kill a man, would you?
- Kirby: No, of course not.
- Katja: But you have been warned about this. "La Fin Absolue du Monde" is no ordinary film.
- Kirby: That's what everyone keeps telling me, like I'm going to back off or something. I don't want to see an ordinary film. I want to see something extraordinary.