The Spectacle

This lushly filmed documentary is set in epically beautiful landscapes in Norway, Lapland, and Türkiye. It’s not clear, however, whether the ‘spectacle’ of the title refers to the planet’s breathtaking beauty or to the behaviour of the hordes of tourists that the landscapes attract. As serene vistas increasingly morph into tourist destinations, the authentic experience of quietly being in nature is displaced by the need for photo opportunities and social-media likes. With its wide, tableaux-vivant shots, the film reflects our collective detachment from a world we now see mostly through a camera lens rather than with our own eyes. For the numerous tourists that populate the film, however, none of this seems to matter. As they wait patiently for their tourist bus to take them back home, they all seem quite happy and content, and have little interest in mourning the death of experience.