Europa

Europa

***1/2

Reviewed by: Andrew Robertson

Telemach Wiesinger says his cinematic fathers are the Brothers Lumiere - Europa is a project akin to Arrival Of A Train. The camera, a Bolex 16mm, one three minute reel, unfolding before it "sentences". He aims to "place [the] tripod, have the scene in front". These are scenes from his "inner world". He states that "Most experimental film makers are a little bit strange or a little bit strong," and the audience will make a note about 'auteurs'. The cinema of attractions is a critical reference and you are lucky to have Europa contextualised like this. In the screening the projector of Filmhouse 3 bobbed a little, a poorly timed metronome as the action unfolded. There was an expectation from the staff that Telemach would intervene, but he was "not interested in this. Each screening has to be different". There was nervous laughter in the auditorium.

This is a "static copy" of Europa. These "sentences", "chapters", are usually presented (as here) with a soundrack with Andreas Gogol. They travel around, "using film projectors", Gogol making the sound live with analogue instruments. He is happy for them to be different, difference is a key -

Flags flutter, a man walks across a roof with a suitcase, a vehicle emerges from the water, and over each there is a radio rumble, tones like an alt-Western - locations are credited: France, Ireland, Switzerland twice, Germany twice, Greece. While in the shadow of Edinburgh's International Film Festival lurks the Euro2012 Football Championship, it's more "band t-shirt" than scoreline. Some of these places feel like these places, others are mysteries - we watch, watching - shoes in an empty phonebooth, a boat drifts pass - water and height and black and white. The door opens with a flourish like an accordion; in a corridor there is light, objects, then all are removed in turn. The attendant ignores the flight simulator, a man clutches a toy yacht.

Is this Europe? These are visions. Is this film? It is a vision. Is it good? It has vision. Though sadly that is not, perhaps, enough. Even with the creator, we watch a man on a bridge with a stick for a bow and a stick for an arrow and a suitcase for a throne, the door in the wall, the disappearing school, and the sound, the sound is amazing. In another order, away or towards what the catalogue calls "[defiance of] conventional logic", perhaps another feeling. Here, unsettled, discomfited. From other minds from this one, poor transference - from other places to this one, a good account.

Reviewed on: 30 Jun 2012
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A vision of Europe's urban landscapes.

Director: Telemach Wiesinger

Year: 2012

Runtime: 20 minutes

Country: Germany

Festivals:

EIFF 2012

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