BY MARK BOSCH, LEAD CRITIC
Last and First Men
Vivid LIVE
Sydney Symphony Orchestra (with Benjamin Northey, conductor)
Sydney Opera House, 2 June
Last and First Men, directed and composed by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, was a pared-back retelling of Olaf Stapledon’s 1930 novel of the same name, with a sweeping live soundtrack, slow-panning, greyscale visuals of otherworldly structures, and narration by Tilda Swinton, who – while not physically present – spoke to the audience from the future as a “more-human, more-animal” descendant of our species, telling of our distant progeny’s slow extinguishment among the stars.
Part of Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House, and involving members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey, this multimedia sci-fi experience might have paired well with the bright, neon lights that have by night turned much of Sydney’s foreshore into a cyberpunk fan’s biggest fantasy. Unfortunately, I never felt like the event’s film was giving me much to fuel any sort of sci-fi fantasising. Neither the content nor technique of the visuals ever changed or developed, though this might have been excusable if Swinton’s narration had any meaningful structure itself. Her characteristically imposing intonation served the meandering script well for a time, but after what struck me as some pretty misanthropic moralising on present-day humanity’s “debased rituals of religion”, our “archaic practices of vocal symbolism”, and our “clinging piteously to the sweets of individual life”, even Swinton’s voice lost all authority. Wandering from subject to subject, from her species’ 20-year gestation period to their supposed capacity for higher-order collectivist thinking, I was not once given a reason to care.
I find the sci-fi trope of species with superior cognitive capabilities being grim, condescending, and emotionless to be really facile; a nonsensical holdover from the sexist Enlightenment notion that emotions make us hysterical and untrustworthy. And, not excepting the work’s androcentric title, I just didn’t find anything about the world of our descendants that intelligently or even intelligibly appraised what one might think is presently wrong with much of our species. Although the narrator deigned to take me on a journey of cosmic contemplation, I felt at all times rooted to the mundane and purportedly primitive Earth.
That said, there were elements of the production I found elevating. The lighting design was creative, occasionally passing over the audience in gentle undulations. Northey was always crystal clear from the podium, though his click track was audibly distracting in the pin-drop opening few minutes. The musicians, along with the two vowel-warbling vocalists Else Torp and Kate Macoboy, were excellent; and there was a beautiful cello solo towards the end, though by whom I’m unsure as programs were not offered for this performance. All things considered, I still felt a little sorry for the musicians, who were given virtually nothing to play but slow, repetitive cells for the whole 75 minutes. As atmospheric as Jóhannsson’s music is, it’s probably not the most interesting to perform live, but it can certainly make for a panoramic listening experience. I just wish its companion piece had been a little more compelling.
Images supplied. Credit: Prudence Upton.
