Homo sapiens

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.

This is perhaps the most austere feature film I have ever seen. Comprised exclusively of static wide and medium-wide shots of abandoned man-made landscapes, these images are presented without commentary, musical accompaniment, or title cards (save a few brief credits at the beginning and end.) After the first few minutes, I knew this viewing experience was going to be a slog, but I pressed on out of a personal commitment to finish any movie I start. (It's only a few hours anyway, right?)

All of that said, I eventually came to develop a certain appreciation for the experience this movie provides (although I can't help but wonder if it didn't involve some version of the placebo effect or whether this might be the film equivalent of John Cage's 4'33".) As someone firmly entrenched within the overstimulated media and technological landscape of the 2010s, it was indeed rather soothing to simply focus my attention on... not much in particular. Certainly skill and craft were required of the filmmakers to select suitable locations, camera placement, and picturesque shots derived therein. The audio deserves particular remark, as the ambiance of each environment is what really sets this apart from, say, a coffee table book of still images. As mentioned, the shots themselves are entirely static, with most containing only the barest traces of movement. Occasionally a small animal will flutter or hop into frame, but the runtime largely consists of empty spaces where people once stood. Given the absence of title cards, it became a banal guessing game to try to recognize where each location might be or what circumstances might have led these environments into such disrepair. I believe a number of shots depict the more famous abandoned locales of the Chernobyl and Fukushima exclusion zones and the Korean DMZ - but again, these are only guesses. I have purposely avoided reading for any further context before writing this review, so I can also only speculate on the filmmakers' intentions or pretensions with this production. The obvious question raised, especially given the glut of post-apocalyptic fiction in recent years, is whether our entire civilization might one day resemble the ruins onscreen; however, given that the various locations have been forsaken at different times and places and for different reasons, it is difficult to discern any larger statement being made. (As one might if the film consisted solely of radioactive towns or failed businesses, etc.)

My middle-of-the-road rating reflects my ambivalence on the question of whether this movie is worth watching or whether, frankly, it's any good. I certainly don't regret watching it, but it's definitely a hard sell. If you're still intrigued after reading this review, I recommend you view it the way I did: alone, in a quiet room, perhaps even in daylight (all of the shots appear to be lit by the sun), and with as few interruptions or distractions as possible. It will almost certainly be an endurance and concentration exercise, but by that token it may also be an opiate for the overstimulated mind.

It's a travel through stunning abandoned places without a single narration.. Only the atmospheric sound.

Felt weird right. It's extraordinarily brilliant work. I felt like watching a post-apocalyptic world or some artifacts covered up for years.

The frame starts from The Buzludzha Monument in Bulgaria in autumn and ends in the same place in the snow season.

The forgotten places.. Once they were major landmarks but gradually forgotten. They are like monuments. Each individual shot creates a frisson of desolation that resonates far beyond the facile irony suggested by the movie's title.

Nikolaus Geyrhalter has created something amazing and mind blowing. If you have the patience to watch a one and a half long documentary without a single word and filled with static frames of abandoned places and their atmospheric sounds, you must watch this.

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.

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!