Robolove, by Maria Arlamovsky, essentially stands out for its stylistic elegance, devoid of unnecessary frills, but with a camera that is able to focus, time after time, on every smallest but significant detail of the robots, without being afraid to take its time to show us everything, and ensuring that we too, in turn, can feel part of that future that is still so far away, but, in reality, much closer than we can imagine. At the Viennale 2019.
Although the women’s rights activist Johanna Dohnal is no longer with us for almost ten years, Sabine Derflinger, in her Johanna Dohnal – Visionary of Feminism, has managed to describe her perfectly, with many small pieces that, considered as a whole, form a unique, big portrait. At the Viennale 2019.
In This Movie is a Gift, Anja Salomonowitz is not afraid to find new languages, to reinvent and rediscover herself. All this results in a true, feather-light hymn to life, one of the director’s most intimate and personal works. A film that accepts and elaborates on every aspect of life in an intelligent and never predictable way. Including death. At the Viennale 2019.
Der Meineidbauer (1926) is the first film by Louise Kolm-Fleck and Jakob Fleck made in Germany, although filming had already taken place in Austria several years earlier. A film that, in terms of many of its technical characteristics, classifies as a hybrid film, a true gem of Austrian and German cinema that perfectly straddles two nations and two different decades. At the Viennale 2019, as part of the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.
Österreichische Alpenbahnen. Eine Fahrt nach Mariazell (“Austrian Alpine Railways. A Trip to Mariazell”), filmed in 1910, and one of the milestones of early Austrian cinema, includes small camera movements for the first time, with a direction that, although decidedly essential, seems much more self-confident than what had been seen just a few years earlier. At the Viennale 2019, as part of the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.
The Orlov, a brilliant film adaptation of the homonymous operetta written by Bruno Granichstaedten in collaboration with Ernst Marischka, reminds us, in terms of humour and staging, of Hollywood films of the golden years. At the Viennale 2019, within the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.
Given a very rudimentary direction, Leichenbegängnis Albert Baron Rothschild almost gives us the impression of having watched a film shot towards the end of the 19th century, undoubtedly fascinating from a purely historical point of view, but – alas! – not at all in step with the times. At the Viennale 2019, as part of the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.
Spaces are the great protagonists of Ralf’s Colors, directed by Lukas Marxt. Wide-open spaces, which almost convey a strange sense of agoraphobia, together with their striking beauty. Open spaces and unspoilt nature that, from time to time, alternate – in juxtaposition – with images of tall buildings, filmed by the director’s camera almost like a symmetrical abstract composition. At the Viennale 2019.
Sinuous bodies, together with intense close-ups, become the great protagonists of Die Warschauer Zitadelle (made in 1930 by Louise Kolm-Fleck and Jakob Fleck), which, in turn, stands out above all for its stylistic elegance, fluent camera movements and, last but not least, an excellent script that is both romantic and brutal at the same time and not at all predictable, ranking as one of the couple’s most mature films. At the Viennale 2019, within the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.
Österreichisch-deutsche Motorbootfahrt auf der Elbe (‘Austrian-German regatta along the Elbe’), made in 1911, features an opening in which a man is intent on filming the event with his camera placed on a tripod, one of the earliest examples of metacinema. At the Viennale 2019, within the retrospective dedicated to Louise Kolm-Fleck.