Steven Shaviro (2010) notes how the film ‘Southland Tales’ (2008) “bathes” us in a multitude of multimedia sources. For example, the opening scene depicting the start of WW3 is shown as home-video footage, while the recap of the last 3 years before the film’s events is told through a series of news feeds. This abundance of multimedia to tell a story conveys to us how, despite being on the verge of the end of the world, technology will still be interwoven in our lives.

Despite also being set in a dystopian future, Matt Reeves’ ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ (2014), uses multimedia sources to construct the eradication of humanity. The scene is set via the opening scene presented through a montage of news clips reporting on the outbreak of the ‘simian flu virus’ and the eventual downfall of humanity. The use of multiple fragmented news clips connotes to us a sense of chaos, shifting from each news story in quick succession gives us a sense of unease and confusion as to what’s going on. What’s more is that us being told this through news clips as opposed to someone giving us exposition is that it raises the questions as to whether they were survivors. All we know is that, as of this point, this is archived news footage. Enforced by an overlay of the world showing the spread of the virus via plane routes, connoting how it was the very technology that we used to evolve that led to our downfall. This minimal yet effective use of post-cinematic techniques really sets the stage for the plot of the film of a dystopian world only enforced by the following scene of a troop of apes led by Ceasar in the woods hunting elk with wooden spears, connoting primal imagery and how nature has returned to the forefront of the world, and how humanity’s advancements with technology have become obsolete. 

(And yes, the irony of using the film with hyper-realistic CGI Chimpanzees to talk about the lack of technology in the film’s universe isn’t lost on me) 

Daniel Woodburn 33650807 24/11/2022

References

Dawn of the planet of the Apes (2014), Matt Reeves, United States, 20th Century Fox

Shaviro, Steven, ‘Post-Cinematic Affect: On Grace Jones, Boarding Gate and Southland Tales’, Film-Philosophy, 14.1 (2010), 1–102

Southland Tales (2006), Richard Kelly, United States, Samuel Goldwyn FilmsDestination Films