Welt Spiegel Kino

Sometimes, the concept of found footage is used too carelessly. This is a film that clearly belongs to the so-called found-footage genre, but the great who work in this genre, such as Gianikian & Ricci Lucchi and certainly also Deutsch, rarely do much finding, but a lot more searching – stubborn and meticulous searching. It’s a kind of archaeology of a long-gone filmic past, an activity that also comprises a profound reflection on the medium of film.Welt Spiegel Kino is made up of three more or less independent parts. It is the intention of the director to make more similar parts, which can then be screened in different combinations and running orders. The parts follow a similar procedure. They start with exterior shots in front of a cinema. Then it’s as if we zoom in on the people, vehicles and events in front of or even in the cinema. In a variety of archives, the director sought material to evoke a random street scene at a random moment. The cinemas in these three parts are the Kinematograf Theater Erdberg in Vienna (1912), the Apollo Theater in Surabaya (1929) and the Cinema Sao Mamede Infesta in Porto (1929). It is amazing to see how successful Deutsch is in bringing everyday life in Austria, Indonesia and Portugal at the start of the previous century back to life. As if disappeared extras can come back from the dead. That goes a step further than archaeology. (GjZ)