Sudden and unexpected - a déjà revue
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Sudden and unexpected - a déjà revue |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1993 |
| length | 29 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Brynntrup |
| script | Michael Brynntrup |
| music | Robert Henke |
| camera | Uwe Bohrer |
| cut | Michael Brynntrup |
| occupation | |
|
Udo Kier : Egon Hettemann | |
Suddenly and Unexpectedly - a Déjà Revue is a short film by the German experimental filmmaker Michael Brynntrup from 1993 . The film describes a surrealistic-absurd cycle of activities in a hermetically sealed cemetery from which the actors cannot break out. The everyday business with death and the repetition of the actions in cinematic time loops becomes a symbol for the finitude of human beings, which is followed by the plea to use the scope of freedom measured in this way in a self-determined manner.
action
The story of the short film tells of Egon Hettemann ( Udo Kier ), who initially takes part in a funeral provision consultation and is 'suddenly and unexpectedly' confronted with a skull mask. The time seems to stand still for a moment. From now on, the viewer follows this skull mask. In the cemetery, the mask ends up in the hands of various mourners and cemetery employees. The wandering of the skull mask from one person to another gives the viewer the impression of a temporal continuity. (Obviously a story is told here that has a beginning and then progresses in time.)
Very soon, however (and more and more often over time) the viewer finds himself in situations that he thinks he has already seen - situations that he has already 'passed' in the continuous film narration: déjà-vu . ( Déjà-vu? - the viewer wonders: this situation has already taken place, just a few moments before ; or also: I already know this situation, 'I've already seen it.' Nevertheless, the viewer experiences this situation as a whole new and current). The déjà-vu situations in the film work just like the psychological phenomenon of déjà-vus in real life.
structure
The film is characterized by its dramaturgical, non-linear narrative concept . The classic principle of dramatic unity (unity of place, time and action) is intensified and concentrated here in a special way: the place is the enclosed area of a cemetery, the time is reduced to a few minutes of 'narrated time', and the action takes place so-called 'last way' (a funeral) paradoxically 'backwards'. The film is structured by recurring narrative loops in such a way that the viewer always returns to the different points in time of the chronological event.
backgrounds
The film was made in 1992 at the height of the AIDS crisis. The media processing of the topic reaches Hollywood (e.g. with the sentimental film Philadelphia , 1993); the visibility of homosexuality in public at this time is closely linked to the issue of AIDS . The gay movement opposes the social classification according to the victim / perpetrator scheme and demands a realistic, offensive approach to the issues of AIDS / death. In the film Suddenly and Unexpectedly, many stars of the Berlin tune scene appear (e.g. Tima the Divine , Ovo Maltine , Jürgen Baldiga , Chou Chou de Briquette ) who are also involved in AIDS prevention at the same time.
In the mid-1990s, 16 mm films were of particular importance at the interface with the new media . The film is presented and discussed under the aspects of its nonlinearity and interactivity at various international symposia on the new, digital technologies (e.g. at the 'Digitale', a congress of the Art Academy for Media Cologne , 1995).
Reviews
"Suddenly and Unexpectedly", a multiple cut through a funeral ceremony. Through several changes and fading of the temporal and spatial coordinates, the assumption arises that every cemetery ceremony is the result of a murder plot by lustful relatives or greedy funeral entrepreneurs. Death appears as a mask that can be pulled indiscriminately over different faces. (...) Death is taboo because it does not fit into the clean streets, it is condemned, singled out in the limited cemetery zone, just as the sick should best be interned or homosexuals are defined as a fringe group in a heterosexually standardized society. (New Germany, November 18, 1993)
Fun between graves - Those who like gallows humor know that they are in the best of hands with Michael Brynntrup. Because in the bizarre stories of the Berlin filmmaker there is a lack of grotesque characters, cemetery fetishists and other freaks God knows not. (...) "Suddenly and unexpectedly", for example, denounces the day-to-day business of death in a very macabre and morbid way: an ambitious undertaker speculates about coffin costs in a cool office atmosphere, a pastor even reels his phrases at the grave monotonously like a record , business as usual, so to speak. (Nürnberger Zeitung, March 21, 1994)