SYNOPSICS
Homo sapiens (2016) is a None movie. Nikolaus Geyrhalter has directed this movie. are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2016. Homo sapiens (2016) is considered one of the best Documentary movie in India and around the world.
The images could be taken from a science fiction film set on planet Earth after it's become uninhabitable. Abandoned buildings - housing estates, shops, cinemas, hospitals, offices, schools, a library, amusement parks and prisons. Places and areas being reclaimed by nature, such as a moss-covered bar with ferns growing between the stools, a still stocked soft drinks machine now covered with vegetation, an overgrown rubbish dump, or tanks in the forest. Tall grass sprouts from cracks in the asphalt. Birds circle in the dome of a decommissioned reactor, a gust of wind makes window blinds clatter or scraps of paper float around, the noise of the rain: sounds entirely without words, plenty of room for contemplation. All these locations carry the traces of erstwhile human existence and bear witness to a civilisation that brought forth architecture, art, the entertainment industry, technologies, ideologies, wars and environmental disasters.
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Homo sapiens (2016) Reviews
Apocalypse NOW
A random series of establishing shots for post-apocalyptic movies that never get started, Homo Sapiens is more a slide show than a movie; yet, it's hypnotic and thought-provoking. Vacant malls, theaters, temples, groceries, neighborhoods, and parking lots are the stars here, no humans are to be seen. We can only assume each environment was abandoned by natural or man-made disaster. Gentle breezes flow through the frame and no soundtrack blares, manipulating your emotions, just the ambient tones of cups rolling in the breeze, plastic flapping, flies buzzing, or pigeons cooing. These may just be 30-second screen savers for complete nihilists, but it's amazing how, over several minutes (the documentary is about one and a half hours) the imagination begins firing and you find yourself constructing your own story. Some shots have clues as to their location; Asia, North America, the Middle East but most shots could be anywhere, remnants of civilization wiped out, perhaps for months, perhaps years. Chernobyl, Fukushima, Bulgaria, Argentina. Absent any intrusion of a sense of story, or even editing sequence to give us a sense of time or place, we could easily be alien travelers or archaeologists, looking at the broken and rotting remains of some lost civilization. You may have seen a location or two in some movie or other; every scene looks like a movie set created by some top art director. The sound is the only real narrator, and if you listen closely, there are distant, perhaps phantom, sounds; alarms, a clang here or there. You'd half expect a narrator's voice to fire up at any moment; a Morgan Freeman, David Attenborough or Werner Herzog. The camera does not swoop or glide along a track; we are immobile, fixed, and the only thing that moves is nature. It would have been easier to string together a series of found footage from urban adventurists, but director/photographer Nikolaus Geyrhalter clearly wanted all his shots to have a consistent tone and lighting. Every shot could have been designed by a Stanley Kubrick or David Lean. There was some subtle digital manipulation or wind effects, but otherwise we are seeing it as is. There is no dramatic impact, just the matter-of-factness of humanity's bleak demise and nature's time-tested powers of reclamation. If there is a dramatic effect, it's that the scenes at the end are in winter climes, and the final image is consumed by a blizzard's whiteout. The shock, you realize afterward, is not the harrowing, desolate beauty of these post-apocalyptic sites—but the fact that they exist here and now. I've never seen rebar look so beautiful.
Difficult to improve on this
I saw Homo Sapiens recently and have to say that I was spellbound from start to finish. I can't say anything bad about this; it was a great investment of my time spent taking it all in. Apparently it took the better part of four years to complete & that's not surprising to me. The sound designer deserves major credit for his work... absolutely perfect in every way. If anyone had told me the formulae for this work before I saw it, I would have said that the creators run the risk of losing their audience, but that was far from the case. It didn't lack anything at all. The power of just images and sound and the exclusion of narration and music was a bold step to take but it proved that it can be done if it's done well. This is a very powerful movie / documentary and I think everyone should take the time to experience it. "Homo Sapiens" is one of the most thought provoking visual and audio statements that I have ever seen and I look forward to seeing it again and again. I honestly can't say that about many other movies. Now it's time to see what other movies this director has made.
Not a world we would choose to live in
Like the films of Godfrey Reggio, Nikolaus Geyrhalter's "Homo Sapiens"is a wordless look at the state of our planet but unlike Reggio's films we are not even permitted a music score to distract us, just a discordant soundtrack made of the noises of humanity and of nature and the sounds are just as important as the images, (the sound 'design' is credited to Florian Kindlinger and Peter Kutin). Where are we and what has happened? The empty, and often wrecked, buildings we see could be Earth after The Apocalypse. Consequently the film is as much sci-fi as it is documentary and like a number of such 'experimental' works is perhaps best viewed as a video installation in a gallery rather than in a cinema or on television. Did Geyrhalter stage this or simply record it? Either way, this is not a world you would want to inhabit yet in the back of your mind you know this is the world we do inhabit and it's far from a welcoming place. The Homo Sapiens of the title, by the way, are conspicuous by their absence.
Breathtaking Treat for the Eyes and a Rare Reprieve for the Ears!
I don't know how anyone can give this less than a 10-star rating! It's everything it is purported to be: A purely visual documentary of man-made structures slowly being absorbed by nature, turning into the archaeological digs of the future. There are no humans, no narration, no soundtrack distractions or cacophony to ruin the spellbinding tour that you have a virtual front seat for! I watched this on my computer, in the dark, with headphones on - and viewed it as if from an otherworldly portal. The random sounds of nature (wind, rain, rustling paper, flapping wings, ocean waves..) were clear as a bell and gave depth to the accompanying scenery. It was very relaxing, thought-provoking, and beautiful even in its ruins. People who have little time, or short attention spans, will not like this. If your entertainment venues generally consist of car chases and uzi carnage, then this flick is not your cup of tea.. walk on by! It is not quite a documentary and not really a movie. It's kind of like the newspapers in a Harry Potter movie: bearing photographs that are more or less still - but also alive! So, for the patient philosopher types who are very visually oriented, enjoy the sounds of breezes and dripping water, and are fascinated by the juxtapositions of human civilization and nature ... fix yourself a hot cup of tea or java, put up your feet, and observe the inevitable ravages of time!
Impressionistic Journey to Abandoned Places
Director Nikolaus Geyrhalter revisits buildings and places that once had human life and a pulsating community around them. Those places are now exposed to rain and weather, some of them inhabited by birds, insects and plants reclaiming the territory. Geyrhalter doesn't comment with any soundtrack or camera movements. You can only hear the (excellently integrated) sounds of objects and nature. So, dear audience, what do you feel while watching human-built places without humans in slow decay? Nostalgia for the life that had been there? Relief that the intruders are finally gone? Melancholy in view of death and disintegration of all things? - A strong, challenging film for introspective people. Highly recommended.