Last Lost (1996)

• 77%
• 1996
• Eve Heller

A film gleaned via the optical printer from a home market movie made in the late 1930's about a chimpanzee's high adventures in an amusement park at Coney Island. Central weight is given to the chimp's inscrutable gaze, indicating psycho-emotional territories informed by peculiar details that haunt the original. The resulting film is a slighlty hypnotic and open-ended parable about coming of age in a shifty world of slipping terms. LAST LOST is a silent film in spirit, trying to speak without words, like some dreams. (...) The primate of Heller's confabulation brings both peace and a sword. The reviving spirits that he releases are not easily compatible with the order of things, and such newfound awareness doesn't necessarily provide the keys to the kingdom but rather a profound uneasiness with the staple amusements and short circuitry of this provisional world.