Our Ark
2021 · 13m · Netherlands
Directed by Deniz Tortum, Kathryn Hamilton
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, provocative
An essay film on humanity's efforts to create a virtual replica of the real world — a digital Noah's Ark of 3D-scanned animals, rainforests, cities and people.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's basically a panic attack dressed up as philosophy—the premise wants to be transgressive but the execution plays it safe, trading genuine provocation for the comfort of well-worn eco-apocalypse rhetoric.
A formally sophisticated essay that situates itself squarely in the lineage of Harun Farocki and contemporary digital-archive cinema, with considered pacing and image selection that transforms the uncanny into the meditative.
The decision to let the 3D scans speak for themselves—untouched, slightly eerie—rather than narrate over them is what unlocks the film's unease; that restraint from embellishment is everything.