Last Things

Saw this at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival

"Last Things" is an experimental film about evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks. A humid take on minerals, where sci-fi meets sci-fact. The geo-biosphere is a place of evolutionary possibility, where humans disappear but life endures. Director Deborah Stratman was able to use images, soundtrack, colors, and stills of rocks, evolution, and bizarre pictures to it's finest. This is the second New Frontier Film I had seen and usually I am not into the experimental type of filmmaking but this film was pretty engaging and never once felt bored.

The beautiful imagery, soundtrack, and calm narration that was provided help to make this film feel like an meditation experience with some ASMR feels to it. For 50 minutes, it's pretty short and it does good pretty fast as each colors and scenes have your eyes glued onto the screen.

It's not something I would call masterful since I don't know if I feel fully attached but I did vibe to it. Overall, a good experimental film.

Rating: B+

I have seen Last Things at Docaviv film festival. Deborah's work truly pushes the genre boundaries of documentary cinema. This is an existentialist parable based on the theory of mineral evolution, an exciting mix of documentary and science fiction. Through transcending the conventions of science documentaries, Deborah achieves an effect that is so lacking in the most thoughtful films about space and the origin of life - Last Things produces a defamiliarization not just of human condition, but of the very nature of life and matter. In this sense, Deborah's work is the one documentary I have been looking for for a very long time! Furthermore, the visual merits of the work as well deserve to be highlighted - thus, the science of mineralogy appears as a truly exciting subjec which is the way in which mineralogy is very rarely described in general (no offense to mineralogists)