Christos Haas, who plays the role of Kurt, suffers from Marfan Syndrome (a genetic disorder of the connective tissue, which causes hearth problems, blindness and extreme growth) in real life. But the film is much more than a document of Christos’ condition.
After killing his clinging mother, Kurt goes on a journey that blurs the boundaries between perpetrator and victim. He meets other disabled people in a care home, drifts about in the confines of that society, befriends Conny, a thirteen-year-old escapee from a broken home who readily participates in Kurt’s protest against his body, ignoring the abyss into which his body is heading.
The film, while also being a study of a disabled person from the perspective of that character, surprisingly but effectively also questions fundamental issues through poetic narrative and stunning black-and-white images. The contrast between the formal aesthetics and the often unbearable content perfectly reflects Kurt’s contradictions.
Where to draw the line between judgment and compassion? How to deal with the disturbing conflict between condition and will, survival and morality, and the extensive technological environment of our times, which seems to turn our bodies into a distant object? How much guilt can one individual endure?
Film details
- Country of production
- Austria
- Year
- 2013
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2014
- Length
- 92"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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