This is one of the most incredible films to come out of the Beat community of San Francisco in the '50s. Running throughout the film (in much the way it ran throughout America at the time) is the fear that "The Bomb" might drop at any moment. Everyone sits, anxiously anticipating "The End". And it comes, again and again. Endless repetition with slight variation.
The poetic way in which seemingly disjointed images are constructed in seemingly unrelated vignettes allows for a tremendous amount of harmony and dissonance between image and spoken narration. At one point the viewer is informed that the narrator doesn't know the story for the following vignette, and the viewer is urged to create their own story with the images provided.
Weaving together beautifully photographed color and black and white footage, "The End" is an important film. "The End" perfectly captures the time at which it was made and speaks eloquently about self-destruction, both personal and cultural.