10 thoughts on “Some cinematic celebrations of desolation

  • 28 Days Later is an amazing film — especially as it was shot ‘for real’ on location, no cgi. They had to film in extremely short segments at odd hours to get scenes of an empty London. Which makes you think of the possibilities at present to capture some extraordinary film footage of London and other places as we never see them.

    http://cinema.com/articles/1468/28-days-later-about-the-shoot.phtml
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28_Days_Later#Production

    Reply
    • Of course I just realised my clip was from ’28 Weeks Later’, the sequel, and probably did make use of CGI. Sadly no clips seem to be available from ’28 Days Later’

      Reply
  • Eve Diamonds

    Could I bring to the table Grimes’s video for her song “Genesis” it contains some wonderfully apocalyptic imagery! I have been thinking also lots about William Gibson and his Sprawl Series if anyone is interested it’s worth a read!
    And if anyone one wants some Post Apocalyptic fun I’m always around for a discussion!

    Reply
    • Never known what to make of Grimes, but I suppose that, in itself, is sort of interesting.
      Thanks for the reference to William Gibson, the first writer to use the term ‘cyberspace’, I believe, in ‘Neuromancer’. I haven’t read the Sprawl series so it’s on my list now.

      Reply
  • I thought about La Jetée by Chris Marker, but I couldn’t find the scenes I was looking for. However if someone finds it in streaming it’s a good post-apocalyptic – time travel movie.

    Reply
    • The beginning of La Jetee is here
      https://youtu.be/6anMLFwHFqs

      You can probably stream the whole thing on Amazon Prime.
      I was going to say that of course it’s on DVD in Chelsea Library, then I remembered … damn that’s no use

      Reply
  • Short one by artist Jozef Robakowski called Rynek (translates ‘market’). He used multiple stills compacted to make a sped up observational film — a view from his window at the world outside his tower block.

    Reply
    • This is really good. So hypnotic… I was wondering how many more people would fit in that market!
      I loved the lady wearing a bright hat chatting with her customers – she appears around 1’15”. She is perfectly positioned for the composition

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *