Franzekens Way
Country: Germany
Year: 2003
Synopsis: In “Quote Fassbinder Unquote”, text sequences of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, taken from the context of his television series “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, which was filmed in monumental faithfulness to the original, are spoken by a female voice. The text sequences relate in a not unambiguously illustrating way to tracings of the two most important characters, Franz Biberkopf and Reinhold. One can discern differences in look but not in expression in the drawings; in this case the type of drawing is closer than usual to a storyboard, the systematically structured sequence of picture compositions to be constructed for a scene, created prior to the production of the film. Here, however, we are dealing with a subsequent storyboard that initially consists only of long-shots and later increasingly abstract sign structures, as well as b/w set design photos and set sketches by Harry Baer and Fassbinder. Towards the end, we see the drawing-like animated film image of a spider within the line structure of its web.
The following quote describes a pure state of bliss between two people – and in the interplay with the images it soon seems as if this analytical description could be transferred to the images of the drawn film as the sketch of a Utopian ideal state between concretion and abstraction: “What goes on between Franz and Reinhold by no means concerns a sexual relation between two people of the same sex; no: it is no more and no less than pure love, unendangered by anything social. That is: this is how it ought to be. But since, of course, both of them are social creatures, they’re incapable of understanding this love, accepting it. They cannot simply submit to being rich and made happy by a kind of love that is, in any event, extremely rare among human beings (...) a love which does not lead to visible results, a love that cannot be mediated, cannot be exploited, and therefore, cannot be made useful. (...)”
(From: Clemens Krümmel, "Film and Drawing on a Tape of Florian Zeyfang", in: Fokussy. Florian Zeyfang, Berlin 2004)
The following quote describes a pure state of bliss between two people – and in the interplay with the images it soon seems as if this analytical description could be transferred to the images of the drawn film as the sketch of a Utopian ideal state between concretion and abstraction: “What goes on between Franz and Reinhold by no means concerns a sexual relation between two people of the same sex; no: it is no more and no less than pure love, unendangered by anything social. That is: this is how it ought to be. But since, of course, both of them are social creatures, they’re incapable of understanding this love, accepting it. They cannot simply submit to being rich and made happy by a kind of love that is, in any event, extremely rare among human beings (...) a love which does not lead to visible results, a love that cannot be mediated, cannot be exploited, and therefore, cannot be made useful. (...)”
(From: Clemens Krümmel, "Film and Drawing on a Tape of Florian Zeyfang", in: Fokussy. Florian Zeyfang, Berlin 2004)
Language: German, English
Tags: Experimental film
Technical Attributes
Format: DVD
Rental status: to rent
Version: original language version
Running time (minutes): 8
Color: b&w