kagablog

Peter Whitehead hadn’t made a film for 32 years – his last film dates back to 1977. Now, he’s back behind the camera to bring us the film of his latest novel of the same name. In this feature-length film of 2h35, Whitehead portrays an icy town which is nonetheless peopled with the feminine graces of several young actresses. Above all, it is a portrait of Vienna today. Its hero is Michael Schlieman, an MI6 agent working with the British Secret Services to solve the mystery of why several operations failed in the past. There are points in common with the sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior and the murder of a photo-journalist from the same organisation. Schlieman is part of an eco-terrorist group and Whitehead, his alter-ego, shows us that his novel is based on “fear and control, or better still, about the fear that the state spreads in order to control” (from the Viennale 2009 Catalogue).

The film opens in Vienna’s Third Man Museum where Schlieman has come to question a beautiful young archivist, played by Sophie Strohmeier. He is hoping to use this research to write a novel. The archivist ends up playing the role of interpreter for his contacts. The colour blue is present in several scenes of this river city, and lines of Seferis and Kazantzakis’ poetry are superimposed on the image. The lines are an accompaniment to the fluidity of the narrative.

Schlieman has to find the young Maria Lenoir, the daughter of Nora, the main character in one of Whitehead’s earlier novels published in 1990, “Nora and …”. A mystical spinning top spins throughout the film, and the local band Black Flash performs its songs while Schlieman’s monologue constantly causes us to lose our bearings. Most scenes are accompanied by instrumental music composed by Whitehead himself.

The film is directed in a way that is different from Whitehead’s earlier films. The images are not packed with formal research on the aesthetics of destruction, but the poetic sensation here comes from the structure of this complicated, multi-layered story. At the end of the third section, Schlieman is found assassinated, without any answers to his questions at the start of the film. His body is lying on the seat of a carriage in the Vienna subway. A line from Homer tells us that “Blue death closes his eyes” – this is the third Greek poet quoted in the film. We filmed the “making of” the latest feature-length film and Whitehead told us that “together, the people he questioned are plotting his murder” (op.cit. “By any old light” published on kagablog, 07-10-08).

“After having destroyed the Third World now we are also destroying this planet” (Whitehead, op.cit. from the Viennale 2009 Catalogue).

Written by Dionysos Andronis, translated by Lucy Lyall Grant