Moon in Taurus
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Moon in Taurus / Moon in the sign of Taurus |
| Original title | Moon in Taurus |
 | |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1980 |
| length | 100 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Steff Gruber |
| script | Steff Gruber |
| production | Steff Gruber |
| music | Ruedi Burkhalter ( Isaac Albéniz ) |
| camera | Andy Humphreys |
| cut |
Steff Gruber , Beni Müller |
| occupation | |
and the voice of James Herbert | |
Moon in Taurus is the first feature film by Steff Gruber from the year 1980 .
action
The film has no actual plot, but it does have a “story”: After five years, the young Swiss filmmaker Steff returns to a small American town that he left because of an abrupt and unhappy love affair. He tries to fathom the causes that made this relationship fail. Wanda has now married Jack and is now in divorce. Parallel to the relationship conflict that Wanda and Jack are having, Steff relived his own love affair with this woman. After the initial analytical observation, he becomes more and more entangled in his own problem. In a conversation between Jack and Wanda, the pent-up emotions break out. Steff tries to mediate, but the points of view are incompatible.
background
Steff Gruber shot his first feature film in Georgia. The film deals thematically with codes within two-way relationships and the question of why relationships diverge. Moon in Taurus doesn't tell a story in the traditional sense. Also, the people appearing in the film are not actors, but each person plays himself, so to speak. The entire film material was recorded as documentary, without staging, without given (written) dialogues. It was only through the editing and selection of the fifteen-hour material that it became a genuine form, moving between documentary and feature film. Especially due to the unusual formal implementation of the film, it attracted international attention. The first version contained conversations with Cindy Wilson ( The B-52’s ) and Silver Thin ( Andy Warhol Factory ), but these did not appear in the final version.
Reviews
“And there are (so that the conversations chant between the scenes, as revelations and changes take place in the conversation) optical sequences all by themselves, accompanied by noises, also by music (a piano composition by Isaac Albéniz): images of untouched Landscapes, of bulldozers in a workshop, of automobiles in front of a multimarket. Sequences, the optical content of which relates meaningfully to the content and developments of the conversations: the dream of the natural idyll, the burial of feelings under the pressure of civilization, the exposure layer by layer of a deeper nature. All this optically so unusual, in terms of the image and its precision (camera: Anthony Humphreys, an Englishman) so concrete and without superficial poetry that the impression of the banal that the mere listing here could in fact never arise. A film (...) that requires patience: despite all the talkativeness, in the end it leads into silence, with all the tendency towards clarification, it keeps its secret from people who suffer from themselves, even when they are looking for joy, for their undisguised self-experience that is supposed to bring luck. A film too, which is unusual not only from the formal point of view. "
“MOON IN TAURUS is an unusual work, given the unconventional production method. It is true that the film deals with the author's privacy, but it is precisely in this private frame of reference that problems of general importance come to the surface. So MOON IN TAURUS has become a study of the two-person relationship. Topics such as security, love, sex, money - terms that are important to everyone are discussed. The strength of MOON IN TAURUS lies in the fact that there are no heroes, neither winners nor losers. The people are shown with all their contradictions and errors, no patent solutions are offered. In addition, MOON IN TAURUS is also an impressive portrait of a young woman who emancipates herself in her own way, rejects the traditional man / woman role-play and is looking for new ways in interpersonal relationships. "
"What people think, feel, how they express themselves and how they change - I have seldom found this portrayed so impressively as in Steff Gruber's 'Moon'."
“Steff Gruber's thorough account of a failed relationship represents a novelty in Swiss film, in its method as well as in its subject. 'Moon in Taurus' does not tell a story but demonstrates how three people try to deal with their his / herstory. (...) Not only do two different languages come together (or rather not come together) in this film, but at least two different appreciations of what talking can do for you. Communication functions on many different levels. Not all the questions are answered. On the other hand, a lot of questions are answered in the film that haven't even been asked. Documentary? Fiction? None of both? 'Moon in Taurus' should be seen first of all as an ethnological study. Not art is its prime concern, no message is reveald. "
"Obviously, this is a special film for specialized audiences, talky to be sure, but constantly interesting intelligent and mature."
Film festivals
- International Film Week Mannheim (competition) 1980
- Locarno International Film Festival 1981
- Solothurn Film Festival 1980
- International Cannes Film Festival 1981
- South African Film Festival 1982
Web links
- Moon in Taurus in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Film production company KINO.NET AG