Review of The City of Your Final Destination (2009) by Gavin S — 22 Jul 2013

4: I could not help but be moved to tears at the end of the film. It wasn't so much the poignancy of the picture that brought me to tears, but the combination of its effectiveness and the realization that indeed this would be the last Merchant Ivory film I would ever see.

Of course, Merchant died a while ago, but it was always a tripartite of Merchant, Ivory, and Jhabvala. This was Ivory and Jhabvala's last film, so now there is only one. Just as the early death of a Kieslowski or Ledger deprives us of presumably fruitful years to come, the departure of an Altman, Merchant, or Jhabvala does the same even if they had a fuller (i.

E. longer) life. This is a rather fitting final film for two of the trio though. Many of their best films reached into the past of Henry James or Kazuo Ishiguro into a time when colonialism and the supremacy of the west was a given.

In a way this film depicts what comes after, decades down the road when the descendants of these gods are forced to come back down to earth as the rest of the world catches up with them. They are living out of time to a certain extent and in the poignant and nostalgic past.

It is a life apart from the rush of the modern western (and not just western of course) world. It is a seductive story and though I may be projecting a bit onto the film, this was my take on the situation anyway.

An interesting and more fitting title than that of most pictures too. It's as if this is the last gasp of a dying team, and of a dying age. It is sad and inevitable. We all must learn to move on and deal with loss or perish ourselves in the process.