El auge del humano 3

Eduardo Williams’ second feature reprises the global scope and desultory wanderings of his celebrated debut EL AUGE DEL HUMANO. Whereas that film crafted a parable of digital (dis)connection and exhaustion by moving sequentially through three image formats and countries, this one explores similar themes through a radically new form. Set in Peru, Sri Lanka and Taiwan, it follows a group of young people as they hang out and chat across these three locations. Despite the naturalism of its nonprofessional performers, the film’s treatment of its multilingual dialogue—littered with non-sequiturs and looping repetitions—underlines that it is no documentary. After shooting with a 360-degree camera, Williams selected his desired framing by viewing the footage through a virtual-reality headset, such that the result indexes his gaze while remaining emphatically machinic. Images bend and glitch; time and space morph and melt. The peculiar cinematography transcends any gimmickry, as Williams stitches together his disparate locations into a single fabric of disafection and dream, at once intimately familiar and profoundly alien. A poetic reflection on technology and experience, EL AUGE DEL HUMANO 3 is a world picture of and for our beleaguered times. (Erika Balsom)

In the presence of Eduardo Williams.

Eduardo Williams: PUDE VER UN PUMA (2011, K), QUE JE TOMBE TOUT LE TEMPS? (2013, K), TÔI QUÊN RÔI! (2014, K), EL AUGE DEL HUMANO (2016), PARSI (2018, K), UN GIF LARGUÍSIMO (2022, K)