''Homo Sapiens'' is a 2016

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter.

Description

''Homo Sapiens'' consists of static shots showing derelict spaces. No people are seen or heard in the film. Brief intervals of blackness divide the footage into chapters. The film opens with a scene showing the Buzludzha monument. Earlier scenes show building interiors, such as offices, churches, hospitals, and cinemas. As the film progresses, more outdoor scenes appear and signs of human presence become less conspicuous. It closes with the Buzludzha monument again, seen from outside as it is engulfed by white fog.

Production

Filming took place over the course of four years, at over 100 sites. During pre-production research for the film, the crew found locations through

urban exploration Urban exploration (often shortened as UE, urbex and sometimes known as roof and tunnel hacking) is the exploration of manmade structures, usually abandoned ruins or hidden components of the manmade environment. Photography and historical inter ...

photography online. They used funding for the research to start visiting sites and immediately begin shooting scenes there. As this progressed, Geyrhalter identified topics that he wanted to cover and focused on looking for specific locations that could illustrate them. Locations included Europe, the United States, Argentina, Namibia, and Japan.

Wide-angle lens In photography and cinematography, a wide-angle lens refers to a lens whose focal length is substantially smaller than the focal length of a normal lens for a given film plane. This type of lens allows more of the scene to be included in the pho ...

es were used to produce exaggerated perspectives. Geyrhalter assembled a rough edit of the film using half-minute durations for each shot and placeholder audio. Because he wanted to eliminate human noises from the film, very little sync sound was used. Audio was recorded separately before being edited to match the image track. Once that process was complete, the film was rearranged and shot lengths were adjusted based on the story arc and the impact of the audio track.

Release

''Homo Sapiens'' premiered on 12 February 2016 at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Critical reception

Peter Bradshaw called it "the most extraordinary documentary I have seen in years", describing its images as "as gripping as any of the sci-fi thrillers or post-apocalyptic dramas that would normally use scenes like these as establishing shots." In his review for ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...

'', Michael Sicinski likened the film's compositions to the work of

Anselm Kiefer Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan hav ...

Andreas Gursky Andreas Gursky (born 15 January 1955) is a German photographer and professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for his Large format (photography), large format architecture and Landscape photography, landscape colour photogr ...

, and Christian Boltanski. He continued that "Instead of uncovering artifacts from long ago, ''Homo Sapiens'' shows us our own relics in the making."

Glenn Kenny Glenn Kenny (born August 8, 1959) is an American film critic and journalist. He writes for ''The New York Times'' and '' RogerEbert.com''. Biography Kenny attended William Paterson University, where he majored in English literature.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that "Each individual shot creates a frisson of desolation that resonates far beyond the facile irony suggested by the movie’s title." ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

'' ranked the film 20th on its Best Films of 2016 list.

References

External links

* * {{Nikolaus Geyrhalter 2016 documentary films Films directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter Films without speech Non-narrative films