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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Monday, December 25, 2023

entry arrow4:43 PM | Carol and the End of the World



So what's my Christmas Day watch? Carol and the End of the World. Nothing like an apocalyptic animated series to make me feel oh so Christmassy. Not many people know this about me but my favorite genre of movies is the apocalyptic film — because generally I just love to see the world burn or plunge to existential chaos with its imminent ending, cinematically. They’re generally of the dramatic sort, a nightmare of dystopic proportions. But Carol and the End of the World upends all of that, because it is actually quite utopic in its take of the world ending. Sure, a rogue planet called Keppler 9C is hurtling towards Earth in the course of seven months, and almost everyone is suddenly in hedonistic mode while awaiting the end of the world. And sure, it follows a sad, closed-up, seemingly purposeless woman who feels unanchored in that new world and just yearns to find a life where the old routines are respected and followed. [She finally finds it in The Distraction, a floor in an office building somewhere in an abandoned business district, which has gradually attracted people like Carol to do the old routines of going to work.] But what this Netflix series ultimately becomes is a chronicle of purpose, of community, even in the face of impeding doom — and getting there is such a journey of existentialist joy, if that makes sense. Above all, nothing of it is cloying or saccharine, which is reflective of the strengths of this series’ writers and creators. I'm glad this was my Christmas Day watch. I expected despair, I encountered hope instead.

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