Dystopian and post apocalyptic the first words that come to mind when the opening frames of Undergods appear on screen. K (Johann Myers) and Z (Geza Rohring) drive their box truck through town looking for dead bodies or anything of value that they can salvage or sell. They appear to be the only two people out in this desolate world so they keep each other entertained by telling stories and drinking god awful homebrew. The first story features Ron and Ruth (Michael Gould and Hayley Carmichael) who live mundane lives in a high rise flat that has no distinctive features except for broken blinds that somebody needs to fix. They are interrupted by a visitor Harry (Ned Denny) who claims that he is from a different floor but has locked himself out which is odd as Ron and Ruth thought they were the only occupants of the building. He wants to borrow a phone to call building management. Unable to reach them Ron invites him to stay. Harry immediately begins to move in on Ruth who likes the attention. The visitor turns the couples world upside down before leaving then engaging in one final confrontation with Ron.
Director Chino Moya's anthology is of different peoples worlds headed towards decay but those that are better off getting there slower. The utilitarian high rise that Ron and Ruth then later Octavius (Khalid Abdalla) and his daughter Horatia (Maddison Whealan) who stumble upon the final fate of Ron occupy could be the same as those in the setting where K and Z operate but at a different stage of decay. Moya shot in Eastern Europe to create his world. An area where there is no shortage of abandoned cities especially in the old Soviet Union. His color palette is deliberately cold, blues, grays, and the endless concrete from the decrepit buildings and the rubble around them serve these series of stories well.
As Horatia settles into bed she wants a story from her dad Octavius. He begins but she is not impressed so he starts into another a more adult tale. Hans (Eric Godon) is a wealthy businessman who has no other outside interest except the well being of his daughter Maria (Tanya Reynolds). A foreigner (Jan Bijvoet) visits with an extraordinary set of plans that Hans downplays and dismisses. But first, he wants a night to review the originals just to be sure. The foreigner is aware of the double cross and kidnaps Maria. A meeting is arranged on the wrong side of town where Hans and Maria's new boyfriend Johann (Tadhg Murphy) are tricked ending up in the Dystopian world occupied by K and Z. There Johann bumps into Sam (Sam Louwych) on his last day at the labour camp before his release. This blends into the final tale of Rachel (Katie Dickie) and Dominic (Adrian Rawlins) the latter a successful engineer who has been providing for Rachel and his step son Will (Jonathan Case) ever since Ruth's husband disappeared. Dominic returned home from work one evening to find Sam sitting in his home that has all of a sudden no longer his.
Underdogs raise many questions but is light on providing the answers and that's a good thing. Moya uses encounters that seem random to link the stories together. They all also seem to share an interloper into two people's relationship sparking a down fall. In the case of Hans and Maria, there are two. The targets of the interlopers appear to be the figure that benefited from society as it existed. Is that a coincidence or are they agents of change needed to end this world view and start a new one.
**** Out of 4.
Undergods | Chino Moya | UK/Belgium / Estonia/ Serbia /Sweden | 2020 | 92 Minutes.
Dystopian future, Bedtime story, Forced Labour, Scavenging, Schematics, Blinds, Coffee, Birthday Party, Karaoke.
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