Clemens Klopfenstein
An experimental conclusion to Klopfensteins trilogy of walk-and-talk philosophical films, presented mostly in negative black-and-white pictures
A daft road movie about two aging thesps in search of Klopfenstein himself.
A group of actors making their way to Rome ends up losing its way due to the fog, the darkness, the ice and their own feelings of guilt, suddenly getting completely lost in the hills.
Philosophical road movie with Max Rüdlinger and Polo Hofer. First they go hiking in the Swiss mountains, then Max is off to Italy where he meets two lovely ladies, one of which accompanies him to Egypt, where they meet Polo Hofer.
Max and Chrige, a married couple of Swiss linguists, hike the Alps searching for rare words still uttered by the rural population. While on his way to a conference, the husband's plane disappears over the sea. Chrige is advised to give up hope of ever seeing him alive, but her heart tells her otherwise. Max comes ashore on a tropical island with another survivor, the plane's pilot. But where are they in reality?
Heavily improvised fairy-tale voyage in Italy involving a bickering Swiss couple and a magic liqueur.
Images of Berlin, the Silesian Gate – last underground station before the wall, the suburb of Asakusa, Tokyo, and of Hong Kong, from the tram in Kowloon are mixed together with studies of the director’s room in Berlin, accompanied by westernized Chinese music.
In Bern, a confluence of events forces Max, a radio commentator, to face the personal sense of frustration he feels in politics, his job and his relationship. A veteran of the ’68 generation, he confronts the demise of that utopian dream, breaking the bonds of his dreary existence during one night.
It’s a black-and-white record of European cities in the dark (2-5am), from Basle to Belfast. Quiet, and meditative, what emerges most strongly is an eerie sense of city landscapes as deserted film sets, in which the desolate architecture overwhelms any sense of reality. The only reassurance that we are not in some endless machine-Metropolis is the shadow of daytime activity: a juggernaut plunging through a darkened village, a plague of small birds in the predawn light. The whole thing is underscored by a beautiful ‘composed’ soundtrack, from quietly humming streetlights to reggae and the rumble of armoured cars in Belfast. A strange and remarkable combination of dream, documentary and science-fiction.
