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The Arc of Oblivion review: Offbeat film about preserving our world

Film-maker Ian Cheney built an ark on his parents' land in Maine as a visual metaphor to help him explore the hubris of keeping anything from our modern world – and why we would think even our fragile digital world could last

By Simon Ings

28 February 2024

THE ARC OF OBLIVION Werner_and_Rex

Film-maker Werner Herzog sits in the ark built for Ian Cheney’s film

Wicked Delicate Films

The Arc of Oblivion
Ian Cheney
Sandbox Films, in some US cinemas from 23 February

“HUMANS don’t like forgetting,” says an archivist from the Al Ahmed Mahmoud Library in Chinguetti, Mauritania. Located on an old pilgrimage route to Mecca, Chinguetti is now disappearing under the spreading Sahara desert. Not for the first time: there have been two previous cities on this site, the first built in AD 777, and both vanished under the dunes.

Ian Cheney, a documentary-maker…

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