A Shape of Things to Come

2020 Directed by J.P. Sniadecki, Lisa Malloy

A sensory and cinematic work from the Sonoran Desert in the southern US, where a man lives in a lonely pact with a brutal nature and in the shadow of the apocalypse.

79 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Kyle Faulkner ★★★½ 6

Harvesting DMT from toads and chilling to Flock of Seagulls in the desert. Well I've found my film of the year.
Cute pigs.
Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

Well treaded material, but Sniadecki and Malloy's patience often pays off and while most of the film considerations about its central character might be familiar, they do find multiple moments in which the relationship between natural and alienation is deeply felt.
Review by jessy morner -ritt ★★★★

even a recluse has to go to see live country music sometimes
Review by Florian Weigl ★★★ 3

Both aesthetically and thematically well-treaded ground as far as SEL's anthropocore goes - but I'm always down for a hang-out session with Sundog and his cat Sparkles, who "quit" society to live out that sweet sweet pre-Anthropocene hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the Sonoran Desert. In his interview with Nicolás Pereda over at BOMB Magazine Sniadecki is very upfront about the collaborative aspects which went into A Shape Of Things To Come. But since everything is premeditated, there is little to no challenge of Sundog's philosophical and ideological views which are very much what you expect them to be. It's only in his "radicalization", culminating in a brief detour into make-believe ecoterrorism as Sundog goes to war against the border patrol tower,…
Review by Eduardo Valente

Talk about social distancing.
Review by Film at Lincoln Center 1

Solitude is explored enigmatically in Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki’s portrait of Sundog, a bearded 60-something man who lives alone in the Sonoran Desert. We watch Sundog as he goes about his daily routine, living just beyond the limits of society as we know it: hunting for food, communing with animals, and growing increasingly preoccupied with the appearance of government surveillance towers near his home. Patiently probing the tension between nature and civilization, A Shape of Things to Come gives its subject space enough to live his idiosyncratic life. The result is a mesmerizing film that feels as much like a tone poem as a work of ethnography.
Art of the Real is now playing in our Virtual Cinema. Get the most out of the festival with an unbeatable offer: access the entire slate for just $50! Start discovering with your All-Access Pass here!
Review by Mesa Em Cena ★★★

Por Pedrinho
Outro filme com uma abordagem minimalista é A Forma do Que Está por Vir, onde o movimento é o de intuir quem assiste em uma realidade um tanto quanto pós-apocalíptica, enquanto mostra de forma documental a rotina de um homem que vive isolado no meio do deserto de Sonora. Ele também constrói aos poucos um grande inimigo, para esse homem enfrentar, com algumas antenas, o barulho dos aviões, as câmeras de vigilância e sua imagem ruidosa, a tecnocracia compõe uma massa disforme e opressora para antagonizar a figura do ser humano em contato com a natureza.
Review by ModernTimesRev

Published in 1933 just after the Nazis came to power in Germany, «The Shape of Things to Come» by sci-fi prophet H.G. Wells set out a vision of a future stretching into the start of the 22nd century. In the novel, benevolent dictators use their power to pull humanity up out from the devastation of a massive war and the threat of plague, paving the way for a peaceful utopia in which citizens are enlightened super-talents who no longer need them to oversee and command their lives, and national divisions are abolished. The spectre of modern civilisation’s collapse and the struggle of isolated survivors in the wake of catastrophe fired the imaginations of numerous sci-fi greats that followed. It‘s a…
Review by nesetel 3

Último sitio donde esperaba escuchar (aunque sea brevemente) Cruz de navajas de Mecano.
Review by Marc-André ★★★½ 3

RIDM 2020
Le portrait énigmatique d'un homme en isolement quasi complet et en mode survivance, qui vit manifestement en repli de la société et dans la méfiance de tout ce qui pourrait approcher, y compris le passage des avions et les tours de communication qui se dressent au loin. Dans une approche ethnographique et intimiste, sans la moindre explication, on assiste à ses activités quotidiennes, à son rapport complexe à la nature et aux animaux qui l'entourent (certaines scènes sont difficiles), à son quotidien entre liberté et aliénation. Qui est cet homme, et quelles sont ses motivations? Plus on apprend à le connaître, plus le mystère s'épaissit. Ouvert à bien des lectures, avec de superbes plans rapprochés, un film patient et méticuleux dans l'approche de son sujet, et sur lequel plane une sorte de menace ou de présage insaisissable.
Review by Raph Sandler ★★★

Not one of my favourite Harvard Sensory Ethnography lab affiliate movies, but an enjoyable 80 minutes. I-want-to-smoke-a-blunt-with-him cinema. Not sure any higher aspirations are able to be meaningfully teased out by what’s presented here, but there’s plenty of interesting stuff in bits and pieces.
Review by matteoB ★★★

was the ending an homage to Brakhage and at the same time a visualisation of a trip?

Recent reviews

Review by jessy morner -ritt ★★★★

even a recluse has to go to see live country music sometimes
Review by JannikTesch ★★½

I really enjoyed spending time with Sundog, following his everyday routines and exploring his uniqueness, which is interestingly broken when he phones with other people, where we learn that his deep feelings, fears and wishes are exactly the same as the ones of “normal” people and are even articulated with much pathos. This grounds this out of this world character and makes him even more human.
I hated “the first cinematic depiction of smoking a Sonoran toad's psychedelic venom” how it pretentiously reads in the official synopsis. It was basically just the operator waving the camera through some bushes.
Also the moments when the filmmakers stage the (what otherwise seem like natural) actions of Sundog are absolutely not fitting the rest of the movie, bringing back the artist’s (unnecessary) presence.
Also the credits sequence, giving psychedelic impressions, is not appropriate. Some restraint on the filmmaker’s side would have been good here.
Review by Apostila de Cinema

"... é curioso como, aos poucos, os animais que transitam por “A Forma que Está por Vir” começam a tomar conta dos espaços, se ocuparem da tela. Javalis, como aquele caçado no início, trazido ao filme como uma presa com a única função de se alimentar, retornam em uma relação quase doméstica, recheada de carinho. Já o sapo atua como parceiro, extraindo dele um veneno com funções psicoterapêutica ao homem. Se tanto criticamos em 'Pressão Atmosférica' a falsa percepção de comunhão da Humanidade com a Natureza, aqui Sundog se ergue como um lobo solitário que consegue aplicar esse objetivo ..."
Leia a análise completa do filme por Jorge Cruz neste link
Review by matteoB ★★★

was the ending an homage to Brakhage and at the same time a visualisation of a trip?
Review by .

Cuando comienza se espera una copia de Two Years at Sea de Ben Rivers mezclada con la concepción paisajistica tan particular de Sniadecki. A medida que avanza surgen ecos de A Alma do Osso de Guimãraes, pero pronto se nublan al poseer Sundog (nada lejos del Moondog de Korine, aun pareciendo su alter ego) demasiados “lujos”. Dos aviones cruzan el cielo y es imposible no pensar en los 10 Skies de Benning... pero de nuevo la asociación nos engaña debido a que aquí no hay azar alguno. Tras la espera, la observación paciente, la caza y la resolución medioambiental del film surge un sentimiento parecido al que rodeaba al Grizzly Man de Herzog pero sin aspavientos. La película de Sniadecki y…
Review by nesetel 3

Último sitio donde esperaba escuchar (aunque sea brevemente) Cruz de navajas de Mecano.
Review by Luis Aceituno ★★★

QUE SUENA MECANO
Review by WarMMachine ★★★½

Une expérience parfaitement immersive dans la vie d'un des derniers hommes lucides de la planète, un néo-hippie qui vit de viande chassée et d'alcool frelaté dans son shack du désert de Sonora avec son chat et ses cochons. Un regard sensuel, son et lumière, sur ses activités quotidiennes, qui dans notre ignorance du monde naturel, semblent extra-terrestres.
Je ne suis pas sûr pour le titre par contre... Dur à dire si on parle ici de la surveillance extérieure (propre des tours de communications et des avions aperçus çà et là) ou de la révolte armée contre ses agents (effectuée à coup de carabine munie d'un sniper scope).
Review by Marc-André ★★★½ 3

RIDM 2020
Le portrait énigmatique d'un homme en isolement quasi complet et en mode survivance, qui vit manifestement en repli de la société et dans la méfiance de tout ce qui pourrait approcher, y compris le passage des avions et les tours de communication qui se dressent au loin. Dans une approche ethnographique et intimiste, sans la moindre explication, on assiste à ses activités quotidiennes, à son rapport complexe à la nature et aux animaux qui l'entourent (certaines scènes sont difficiles), à son quotidien entre liberté et aliénation. Qui est cet homme, et quelles sont ses motivations? Plus on apprend à le connaître, plus le mystère s'épaissit. Ouvert à bien des lectures, avec de superbes plans rapprochés, un film patient et méticuleux dans l'approche de son sujet, et sur lequel plane une sorte de menace ou de présage insaisissable.
Review by Manslide

Further proof that JP is making some of the most fascinating contemporary docs. Finding a subject like this is unreal and the material was handled so delicately.
A perfect double feature with Two Years At Sea.
Review by ciné-fils

La mythologie est un jeu à transformations. C’est Lévi-Strauss qui l’a vraiment montré et sa contribution est précieuse. Mais l’ethnologue s’imagine, à tort il me semble, que le passage peut toujours se faire dans n’importe quel sens. Tout se situe sur le même plan. Rien d’essentiel n’est jamais gagné ni perdu. La flèche du temps n’existe pas.
René Girard, Le bouc émissaire
Review by Raph Sandler ★★★

Not one of my favourite Harvard Sensory Ethnography lab affiliate movies, but an enjoyable 80 minutes. I-want-to-smoke-a-blunt-with-him cinema. Not sure any higher aspirations are able to be meaningfully teased out by what’s presented here, but there’s plenty of interesting stuff in bits and pieces.