Demminer Gesänge
Rumination on place and the horror of its destruction (in 1945, in what was clearly a horrific time in this particular city, culminating in a truly terrifying scene of mass suicide), and the suffering of non-mourning in an age that has lost the capacity for tragedy, but without any mention whatsoever of that part of the population of this city that was driven out only a dozen or so years earlier, if not before then (perhaps Syberberg’s date of birth, 1935, plays a part in that respect: by the time he was really conscious of his surroundings, they were already gone, making it easier for him to decide they are just of no interest to him, though the problem seems to run deeper than that – and, watching this, one cannot help but wonder if he truly understands who the translator is of Syberberg, 2017).
Nevertheless, there is something radical about the filmmaker’s obsession with traces, and his courage to make a film of such length (214 minutes), so much of which is nothing more than a camera filming a computer screen, as if it were no different than filming buildings or statues or books (not to mention snippets or posters from the films of Lang and Sokurov, the theatre of Schiller, and the music of Bach, Mozart and Brahms). Whatever the reasons this was rejected by Berlin, they can’t have been good ones: the octogenarian Syberberg is still trying to do more than almost all other filmmakers, and with the most meagre means, and really wants to raise the question of how it is that cinema could be a saving power, so to speak, against a desert that has not ceased to grow.
Note that there is also a follow-up film, NACHTGESANG (NIGHTSONG), from 2025, not included on IMDb or this website.
Nevertheless, there is something radical about the filmmaker’s obsession with traces, and his courage to make a film of such length (214 minutes), so much of which is nothing more than a camera filming a computer screen, as if it were no different than filming buildings or statues or books (not to mention snippets or posters from the films of Lang and Sokurov, the theatre of Schiller, and the music of Bach, Mozart and Brahms). Whatever the reasons this was rejected by Berlin, they can’t have been good ones: the octogenarian Syberberg is still trying to do more than almost all other filmmakers, and with the most meagre means, and really wants to raise the question of how it is that cinema could be a saving power, so to speak, against a desert that has not ceased to grow.
Note that there is also a follow-up film, NACHTGESANG (NIGHTSONG), from 2025, not included on IMDb or this website.
Mini Review: Rumination on place, the horror of its destruction, and the suffering of non-mourning, but with no mention at all of that part of the population of this city that was driven out only a dozen or so years earlier. Nevertheless, there is something radical about the filmmaker’s obsession with traces, and his courage to make a film of such length, so much of which is nothing more than a camera filming a computer screen. Whatever the reasons this was rejected by Berlin, they can’t have been good ones.