Last and First Men

Last and First Men

Two billion years later, the human race finds itself on the edge of the solar system and is about to perish. Almost all that is left in the world are giant fantastical monuments through which civilization conveys its philosophical and inspirational messages. The Last and First Men is a screen adaptation of Olaf Stapledon's sci-fi novel of the same name, the largest paradoxical "future story" ever written, narrated by Tilda Swinton. The only and last directorial work of the Icelandic composer-minimalist Jóhann Jóhannsson ("Arrival", "Mandy", "The Universe of Stephen Hawking", "The Assassin"), who managed to reduce a grand plot without a protagonist to a simple and understandable emotion - the feeling of the end not only of himself, but of the whole world. Johannsson died in 2018, at which time his film was ready, and the film premiered at the Berlinale only in 2020.