(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
As in his award-winning documentary trilogy, Glawogger explores in Untitled the lives and resilience of those living in society's smelly, stingy trenches in an empathetic and poetic way. They are unmasked, raw and filmically captivating. Through Glawogger, they generously share, with a large portion of sovereignty, their struggle for existence.
My daughter at 11 is fascinated to see the scene of the Moroccan garbage over and over again. She tells the girlfriend excited about the myriads of little life stories she has witnessed. About everyone being themselves – no one plays. About children running cheerfully against a truck with fresh waste and fighting both against each other and against goats to secure some goodies.
Dead on the way. Glawogger commented on what he had planned to be a one-year film trip around the world. The movie was about nothing. He should follow the intuition. But he never came back: He died suddenly of an aggressive malaria four months into the shooting period. In the void he left behind, his longtime film clerk Monika Willi directed and seized the aftermath.
Controversial. Willi has chosen to include excerpts from Glawogger's travel diary as voice-over. Where Glawogger himself cultivated a form where the scenes should speak for themselves, several of his travel notes are now colored in the form of a snobbish British female voiceover. The grip is perhaps intended to give a deeper insight into the mind of one of the documentary film's great visionary and community-engaged bautas. But I'm not entirely convinced. Initially, I get out of the movie's mesmerizing closeness, and the illusion of being invited into a life is missing. Is the chosen upper class accent a conscious and cunning choice, part of something bigger? Willi comment on the election controversy in Glawogger's filmmaking? His willingness to stage and pay well for the natural presence in front of the camera?
In the void Glawogger left behind, his longtime film clerk Monika Willi directed and seized the aftermath.
Single-footed young boys play soccer so the law of gravity ends in an exceptionally fast-paced and vibrant football scene; The voice-over reveals Glawogger's own words about his method – he is delighted at how the rumor about gifts sharply gear up the gang of crutches. Still, the recording is on its own. The boys are genuinely enthusiastic stars in their own lives – the premiere or not. The moment the game lasts prisons and sets them free from the challenges that life otherwise presents. The documentary film convention breaks loudly that characters should not be paid – then the result is false. Others may get paid, but not those in front of the camera as part of their own lives. Willi throws posthumous Glawogger's attitude and method right in the flesh on us. It is rude and effective.
Admittedly, Glawogger's film as a social policy project is stymied by someone else's directorial grip, but equally relevant.
Beautiful and moving. My daughter is touched by the poor shepherd who wraps the newborn kittens in plastic debris to protect them from the whipping wind and the cold rain. Just as quickly, she tells of men trying to put out a fire in an entire forest just by the use of some spent branches with leaves on it. She breathes in how the garbage in the previous scene danced like the ballerinas in The Nutcracker. With a dramatic blow, she is back in the flames: the poor men gain control of the fire, but then they suddenly pull it out with the help of crisp, high. She insists that I stop the movie to take a picture of the burning apocalyptic forest. That it is one of the most beautiful she has seen. Then she runs out.
Hectic and lingering. I'm back alone in steamy hammam scenes with men more closely entwined than the characters in the monolith. The body is twisted more than a dishcloth, stretched and bent. The masseur sits behind the customer and holds him closer than a mother holds the baby she is feeding. This bodily density repeats itself in other contexts. Muscular switches rest in tight embraces of each other. Camera is fascinated by the sand that adheres to the dark, sculpted bodies as they degenerate into the light sand. The man who comes to life in seawater in search of diamonds as large as dust grains. The rocky rhythm is hectic and lingering, the sound painting painstaking and at the same time a modern one soundscape. We go back and forth. Coexistence between dark past and religious celebration; In a village where war ruins with bullets ruin wallless right next to shiny new buildings, a priest blesses a lavishly covered communion table and lets the frosting begin. A bowl of yellow casserole, which everyone supplies with their hands at the same time, stands straight on the ground. Cars dangerously noisy past. The contrasts are numerous and the weave tight and well-made. Glawogger recorded in 14 countries in the four months before everything stopped.
Fly on the wall. Regardless of method, this film provides a unique intimate insight into otherwise inaccessible worlds. Not because these people with their lives are not there in parallel with us, but because Glawogger's project was to portray their struggle for existence by promoting sovereignty in their own life situation. Admittedly, Glawogger's film as a social policy project is stymied by someone else's directorial grip, but equally relevant. He sought to be invisible in a world where, as a white man, he always stood out. He gives us the opportunity to be a fly on the wall in diametrically different lives from our own.
The substance throws on the spectator; the presence of dirt, smoke, grime, garbage. Green grass carried through a cramped and dusty alley. It sprouts from the canvas. Sparkling silvery fish are handled by red plastic gloves. We travel across dark markets at night, which are suddenly transformed as the flow of people returns. We are in macro and micro. We are participating. Glawogger's world is rich and he is happy to share the speed and the experience.
Glawogger's creations are conveyed to us in violation of his own methods – and it enriches.
Deserve homage. A tactile masterpiece is left behind. Willi has consulted with Attilla Boa, Glawogger's regular photographer during the completion – he should also be thanked. 70 hours of material has been processed and has become a tribute to a documentary who would convey us vitality, regardless of method. Now his creation is conveyed to us in violation of his own methods – and it enriches.
Believer would make a movie about nothing. It's become a movie about everything. A sensual and splashing freckle over life.
The movie is shown on BIFF in Bergen September 26 to October 4
