Last and First Men
Last and First Men
6.7100%44%
Two billion years ahead of us, a future race of humans finds itself on the verge of extinction. Almost all that is left in the world are lone and surreal monuments, beaming their message into the wilderness.
Mike reviewedOctober 11, 2024
Last and First Men is not just a film. It is a spiritual journey with a powerful message, told through art.
"In certain rare cases, mental events far seperated in time determine one another directly."
This film is a special work of art, created by Jóhann Jóhannsson. A composer that expanded his creativity by not only composing a film, but also directing it. When both the cinematography and score arise from a singular creative mind, that's when you know they are in perfect harmony. Jóhann Jóhannsson already was one of my favorite composers, but with this film he had outdone himself.
The visuals were very abstract. The framing and compositions weren't the only aspects that were abstract, the visual elements within the frame were too. From the stone structures to the landscapes, literally all of it. Even though the visual elements were abstract, the shots were never disconnected from the story. This is because the visual storytelling had a great balance between inviting the viewer to actively use their creative mind and guiding this creativity through framing and compositions. Certain shots also evoked curiosity, because the abstract elements were not fully shown through the fog.
The fact that Last and First Men was shot on 16mm film worked really well. The heavy film grain added a dynamic element to the shots. This brought an organic visual representation to the abstract elements within the frame, giving it even more character.
The cinematography visualizes the story and stimulates the creative mind of the viewer. The score enhances this story and stimulates the emotions of the viewer. The score added so much more depth to the abstract shots, that some of them didn't feel abstract anymore. The score also had a lot of diversity in it, which evoked different emotions during different parts of the story. This helped the (visual) storytelling a lot.
The story has a powerful message. A message that is important for all of us. The message is a warning... a warning to prevent that we, the first men, will become the last men.
In order to create a future, we need to learn from the past. In Last and First Men we learn from the future, we learn from the last men. For them the message is a reflection on their past, for us it is a warning of our future. A warning we should not ignore.
The first message we, the first men, got was from the last men that live a '1000 million' years from now. From their moment in time, in 30.000 years life will be impossible anywhere within a vast radius of the sun. Considering that even for them 30.000 years is a very long time, from our perspective it's even longer. Should we worry about a distant future if there is enough to worry about in the present?
Read full review at Letterboxd: Mike_v_E