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September 15, 2010

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

There were dozens of movies at this year's Venice/Toronto/Telluride trifecta that I was incredibly anxious to see - Promises Written In Water, Rabbit Hole, A Horrible Way To Die, Meek's Cutoff, Uncle Boonmee and so on and so forth - but I'll pick just one to expound upon now: Sophie Fiennes new film, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, which documents the work of Anselm Keifer. As with her last picture, Fiennes seems to have made a film which formally embodies her subject. In A Pervert's Guide To Cinema, she aestheticized the referential theory of Slavoj Zizek; here, it would appear that she likewise takes Kiefer's already established aesthetic and converts it to cinematic currency.

My two favorite works at The Modern in Fort Worth are by Keifer (from a total of four in their permanent collection). Both loom large, occupying entire walls and looking as if the galleries and halls had been built up around them: Aschenblume, with its desiccate vanishing point, and Papst Alexander VI: Die goldene Bulle, which hangs over the the entrance to the museum's cinema and thus sets quite a precedent for whatever's to be seen on the other side of that wall.

Thanks to Tom Hall for the link to the trailer.

Posted by David Lowery at September 15, 2010 9:56 PM