PRAGUE, MARCH 92

Schöne gelbe Farbe, a reference to Godard’s Le Mépris, superimposes the story of a flatmate who has become unbearable, read in voice-over, onto images of the empty apartment, then a door that slams like a gunshot. Weit entfernt depicts in black and white a telephone conversation between two women, one of whom states that apart from the people she loves, she only wishes to meet others once in her life. Prag, März 92 begins with the forthright words, “there is only one’s own time,” and portrays seemingly trivial scenes in the streets of the Czech capital just after the fall of the URSS, with excerpts from an essay by Bohumil Hrabal. Ich bin den Sommer über in Berlin geblieben depicts two couples who find it hard to trust each other, and an editor who demands of his author “more willingness to make himself understood”.
Automatic and noisy movements of vehicles among which a few human beings float, bright colours that stand out furtively from the grey atmospheres between day and night, strangers waiting patiently, with a beer against the cheek in a café or in front of a red light, hand on hip, characters who rub shoulders without managing to get along: these four short films set the scene for Schanelec’s work to come. (M.H.)