Last and First Men

Two kinds of humanity that need each other. Directed by film composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, the film oscillates between an audiovisual poem and a quasi-documentary. Cameraman Sturla Brandth Grøvlen has subjected the forms of stone and concrete, at that time real creations of Yugoslavian brutalism, to visual scrutiny, while the voice of a messenger from the far future, played by Tilda Swinton, delivers both good and bad news. The final arrangement, complemented by Jóhannsson’s musical composition, ultimately creates a unique physical experience out of a rather academic film, which at the very beginning sets out to do nothing less than bring the viewer into a state of contemplation.