» ABENDLAND / NIGHTFALL
.......................................................................................................................................
This is a twilight film which, in this disillusioned period of transition from one millennium to the next, describes to the point of despair the painful quest for a brighter future. The film-maker’s vision starts out from an analysis that concentrates the main elements of the story on a few characters in a limited number of places. Anton and Leni, their disastrous relationship, their lonely drifting, their confrontations with daily violence.
The settings are those of poverty. A city that could be any western city, streets, a wasteland of prostitution, bars, a hotel, a river from which the body of an assaulted little girl is fished out.
Neorealism and expressionism pervade this world in which a series of symbols is at work: the white swan in the coal-black night and the bells that no longer ring.
It is an emblematic, burning film, its long, concentrated shots bring out the fictional truth of every situation – the only truth capable of changing into an existential experience. The stylisation of the production, which captures the characters’ authentic accents, and the searing power of the violence testify to a quality of observation that transforms this story into hallucinated realism.
abendland is a magnificently solitary work in the current production. Fred Kelemen is one of those lucid film-makers who, like entomologists, transform reality into a theatre of despair in which the demoralized characters nevertheless seek patches of light, a compassionate face; who learn to see, receive and share.
Jean Perret, Visions du Reel, 2000
.......................................................................................................................................
|