The Way of the Weed

The makers: ‘When asked which book he would like to save, Salvador Dali replied: Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel. This book describes the theory of anti-gravitation and freezing, the only two strategies for survival of the human race. The Way of the Weed is somewhere in between anti-gravitation and freezing. It is a quest in the desert for new life forms in the guise of an old experiment. The machines of Roussel have become enormous kaleidoscopic boxes. Thomas, a researcher, unravels the many possible life forms and their strange movements. Until everything starts floating. The actors are dancers from the Ballett Frankfurt, with in a special guest role the choreographer William Forsythe. The Way of the Weed has nothing to do with filmed choreographies, but is more about filming a special way of looking at moving bodies. A science-fiction experiment that forces the viewer to look at a moving body without the need to receive dramatic information. It invites one to look clinically, free of the usual eroticism of bodies in dance films. They are like X-ray pictures or scans of a body that can be manipulated into kaleidoscopic images, repeatedly driven by the fascination of the investigator for the detail of the body in motion.’