Indian Diary – Days at Sree Sankara

Michael Pilz: ‘A beautiful start. You go to the cinema, it gets dark and then the music starts. You take it up, you surrender to it. Only after a while are there the hissing and the images, that are different and strange, you don’t know where you are, where from, where to. No special indications. No one. Just random glances. Slowly. The listening and looking continues. Then pieces of people loom up, stooping forward, strange forms, sounds and picture. Crows squark. There night, there day, light, dark. Tranquil, moving, slow, fast. And silence, always silence again, very important. And loud, shrill music, you don’t know where or why. A verandah. A room. Vague voices. Then an untiring city, traffic, an alert look, open, not consumed, magic movements, as if acted. As if half asleep.No haste in this diary from India. Surroundings, way of life, colours, lights, sounds, one threaded into the next and all speaking to each other, loud and then soft. Making films and seeing films is, for me, like getting in a train, looking outside and being amazed: just look what’s all going on! Something is going on! Be open, allow yourself to be overwhelmed, to be moved, by chance, irrespective of how strange it is, or how inexplicable, and sometimes also disgusting. I am just hungry, curious, but not only about what happens in front of the camera or on the screen, but also about what happens to me. Sometimes the most incredible things happen.’