In the mountains, part 2

(continued from page 1)

We listen closely to the amazing old language and the occasionally dramatic life stories. Stories sometimes with angular philosophies of life and peasant poetry, but poetry it certainly is.

Schreiner would appear to have withdrawn for a long time in the landscape and among the people who populate his films. Chopping wood instead of making films. It seems to have had the desired result. Capturing the peace, the way of life and reasoning in the isolated mountain community is recorded with an incredible amount of respect and sensitivity. One season more or less seems less relevant.

During the absence of Schreiner, Pilz has built up an imposing video oeuvre, focusing on a personal perspective and lengthy meditations. Meditations that have occasionally led to extremely long films such as his travel diary from Siberia Prisjádim Na Dorozhku/Let’s Sit Down Before We Leave (1995). Or the exhaustive portrait screened during the recent Holland Festival (Rotterdam, Holland) of the theatre maker Jack Garfein That’s all there is (2006).
Films lasting 10 hours in the case of Pilz. Films in black & white in which an incomprehensible mediaeval German is spoken in the case of Schreiner. They asked for it, you could say. To be admired for their courage, but also to be relegated to the fringe.

Pilz and Schreiner of course only form an exceptional fringe within Austrian documentary, that with names such as Ulrich Seidl, Michael Glawogger and Nicolas Geyrhalter is itself exceptional enough to have a clear profile in an international sense. Characteristic for the Austrian situation is that the exceptional fringe (Seidl, Glawogger and Geyhalter certainly don’t make television) has its own fringe.

A fringe that is occasionally supported and cherished reluctantly, but apparently there’s always some money to be found for real art in Austria. And that certainly makes the journey worthwhile every year.
And yes, the mountain comes to Mohammed. Bellavista is coming to Rotterdam. Back...
    
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