Portabella’s political instincts (or insights, information?) are certainly remarkable. Few and far apart are those who in 1989 would have been able to make a film about the fragile state of Europe, the anxieties of a subcontinent on the brink of political turmoil - and name it after an architectural site found close to the Berlin Wall, whose 'fall' would commence a new era in world politics (the fall-out of which gets discussed in General Report II. The New Abduction of Europe (2016)).
Not that the film talked about that too directly. It’s all in the form: a narrative that resembles a puzzle whose parts don’t necessarily (have to) add up, an aesthetic that’s at the same time artsy and artful, glacially beautiful and enigmatically forbidding, seductive and repulsive. The starting point? A party - or is it maybe the urban legend of the diver found in a tree-top?
- Director
- Pere Portabella
- Country of production
- Spain
- Year
- 1989
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 85'
- Medium
- 35mm
- International title
- Warsaw Bridge
- Language
- Spanish
- Producer
- Pere Portabella
- Production Company
- Films 59
- Sales
- Films 59
- Screenplay
- Carles Santos, Pere Portabella, Octavi Pellissa
- Cinematography
- Tomás Pladevall
- Production Design
- Pep Durán, Vicenta Obon
- Sound Design
- Licio Marcos de Oliveira
- Music
- Carles Santos
- Cast
- Paco Guijar
- Website
- http://www.pereportabella.com