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?
Film details
- Country of production
- Spain
- Year
- 1989
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 85"
- Medium/Format
- 35mm
You may also like this
-
A glória de fazer cinema em Portugal
Short documentary unravels what happened to Portuguese writer José Régio’s intention 90 years ago to borrow a camera and make a film and in t
-
I’ll Be Late for Dinner
A rhythmic montage of photographs made by the Cassini satellite in orbit around Saturn, including the ‘imperfect’ images that never made it into th
-
Wake (Subic)
Wake (Subic) forms, together with Vapor Trail (IFFR 2010), a monumental essay that investigates the context of the poisoning around former American