Homo sapiens (2016) DVD9, download for free

Apr22

Homo sapiens (2016) DVD9

by movieworld on April 22nd, 2017 at 14:41

If the spirit of Stanley Kubrick lives in any current film-maker, it is surely the Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, whose 2008 documentary Our Daily Bread was a chilling study of mechanised food production and animal slaughter. Now he has created a visually extraordinary film composed simply of long, static shots of abandoned human constructions that have been left to rot after natural disasters, human neglect or time itself have taken their toll.

Filming in places ranging from Fukushima to Bulgaria, with stops in the U.S., South America and parts of Europe, Geyrhalter – who shot all the material himself – presents us with an array of homes, offices, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, churches, movie theaters and military installations in various states of decay. Where they are located and why they have been abandoned is never explained, nor does the filmmaker attempt to appease us with scenes of people rebuilding or moving on: there are simply no people to speak of, and at best one can see a few birds or frogs enjoying their new habitats.

This simple, eerie succession of images is as gripping as any of the sci-fi thrillers or post-apocalyptic dramas that would normally use scenes like these as establishing shots.