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by Norbert Pfaffenbichler
grade: 8
With 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned, Norbert Pfaffenbichler has further confirmed his talent for playing with new ways of understanding mise-en-scène itself, drawing inspiration from the origins of cinema, but at the same time creating something totally new and personal. At the Diagonale’23.
Looking for the child
In the year 2021, we all got excited about the story of the monkey-man who, after meeting an abandoned child by chance, decided to take him with him. Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid (1921), Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s 2551.01 stood out for its innovative staging and its singular, studied portrait of the underground world, which immediately becomes an image of the very world we live in. And so, great expectations were raised by the presentation, as part of the Diagonale’23, of 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned, the second chapter of the trilogy, in which, precisely, we see how our monkey-man does everything he can to find his child friend, kidnapped by sinister characters who, along with other children, want to train him to fight.
Just as it was the case with the first chapter of the trilogy, therefore, 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned also stands out for the unique staging adopted, in which the total absence of dialogue, together with terrifying masks on the faces of the protagonists, images of mutilated bodies, explicit sexual acts and shabby settings, studied down to the smallest detail, are the absolute protagonists.
The monkey-man wanders around the city underground. He does not know where to look for his friend, but, at the same time, there are those who want to arrest him, those who want to be able to ‘control’ what happens in the city, ‘annihilating’ those who are considered ‘different’. A woman – also wearing a mask on her face – comes to the rescue of our protagonist when he is wounded during a shootout. A loving relationship seems to develop between the two, yet the twists and turns are not slow in coming and, once again, keep us in suspense. At least until we get to see the third and final chapter of the trilogy.
In 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned, we never know what to expect and, along with a dark slapstick humour, repelling images that, nevertheless, because of their very nature, immediately take on a magnetic appeal, intertwined bodies that merge, blur and almost take on the appearance of an abstract painting, we see how an explicit eroticism is ready to steal the show from everything else, triumphing on screen with all its visual power.
Constant electronic music (by Wolfgang Frisch, Simon Spitzer and Julia Witas) accompanies us throughout the screening of 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned and, together with the immortal music of Henry Purcell, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giacomo Puccini (memorable is the scene in which, on the notes of the Nessun dorma, we see our protagonist fall to the ground, after being wounded, while he tries in vain to reach the child) find in a successful counterpoint the right solution for an excellent crescendo that makes this second part of the trilogy even more adrenalinic and visually captivating. With his 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned, therefore, Norbert Pfaffenbichler has further confirmed his talent in playing with new ways of understanding mise-en-scène itself, drawing inspiration from what has been made since the origins of cinema, but at the same time creating something totally new and personal. We just have to wait for the third chapter, to know what fate will await our protagonists!
Original title: 2551.02 – The Orgy of the Damned
Directed by: Norbert Pfaffenbichler
Country/year: Austria / 2023
Running time: 82’
Genre: experimental, horror
Cast: Stefan Erber, Veronika Harb, Jurij Föger
Screenplay: Norbert Pfaffenbichler
Cinematography: Martin Putz
Produced by: Norbert Pfaffenbichler