Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 233: Tue Aug 22

Journeys From Berlin (Rainer, 1971): ICA Cinema, 6.30pm

 
This film is part of the Yvonne Rainer retrospective at the ICA. Full details here.

ICA introduction:
Yvonne Rainer’s fourth feature, inspired by her experiences living in West Berlin in 1976 and ’77, when the activities of right-wing terrorists were at their height, offers an audacious, collage-like meditation on state power, repression, violence and revolution. Vaulting between aerial images of British landscapes, intertitles, fragments of Rainer’s teenage diary and one unseen couple’s debate (voiced by Amy Taubin and Vito Acconci) over the demise of the RAF, the film is illuminated by a lead performance from the late art and film critic Annette Michelson as a patient undergoing psychoanalysis, whose every gesture was choreographed elaborately by Rainer over a nine-month period. This is the UK Premiere of the 4K restoration of the work.

Chicago Reader review:
‘Journeys From Berlin significantly furthers the political implications of (Rainer's) previous work while continuing the development of formal strategies that challenge audience expectation... and slyly subvert the attachment to character identification. In her willingness to enter into the zone of ambiguity and to dare to fix meanings within its delicate balance of style, Rainer has made... an indicator of a new development that could rescue avant-garde film from its current paralysis.'
B Ruby Rich

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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