‘The Last Photograph’ Trailer Looks Like Zack Snyder Made a Very Expensive Perfume Commercial

Now that Zack Snyder’s “The Last Photograph” has been announced to world premiere at TIFF, the marketing, without a distributor, commences.

Here’s the trailer for the film, which comes with warnings for violence and nudity. It’s presented with such a self-aggrandizing air, complete with “poetic” narration and cinematography that looks like a Chanel ad. Good God. What has Snyder made here? If you’ve ever wondered what a Zack Snyder movie filtered through Terrence Malick might look like, well, here you go.

By the way, “The Last Photograph” won’t screen for press at TIFF—in fact, the film has just one scheduled showing, and it’s for the public. That means critics won’t get the usual press screening ahead of time, and if they want to see Snyder’s jungle epic, they’ll have to somehow track down a ticket and attend the public screening like everyone else.

A week ago, I reported that Snyder had been pitching the film as his “Apocalypse Now,” which certainly sets the bar pretty damn high.

And that’s because, as I’m hearing, Snyder still hasn’t found a distributor willing to take the film. That’s a rather unusual position for a filmmaker of Snyder’s stature, particularly for a movie that’s already completed. The lack of a buyer is raising some eyebrows, and I’m told there are, yes, quality concerns surrounding the film. However, the other issue, apparently, is that the movie is said to be extremely violent, even by Snyder’s standards, which may be putting some potential buyers off.

The film, scripted by Kurt Johnstad (“300”), follows an ex-DEA operative who ventures into the South American mountains to rescue his kidnapped niece and nephew. He’s joined by a washed-up war photographer, and as the two head deeper into the wilderness, the mission forces the protagonist to confront his past while reality begins to blur with the surreal.

So here we have Snyder, spending 15 years trying to get his jungle epic made, finally shooting it, calling it his “Apocalypse Now,” and then apparently struggling to find anyone willing to distribute the damn thing. He went from making two “Rebel Moon” movies for Netflix to disappearing into the Colombian wilderness—not to mention the Brazilian Amazon—and emerging with an extremely violent thriller that now seems to be stuck in distribution limbo.

If the movie is as rough as some in the industry seem to fear, this trailer will not help. I’m not sure “Apocalypse Now” is the comparison I’d be reaching for. If anything, it looks like Snyder has made something far more self-serious and aggressively stylized—a jungle war movie filtered through a luxury perfume commercial, complete with overly dramatic narration and the kind of imagery that seems desperate to convince you that every frame is profound.