Resonant Bodies—Fredi M. Murer Retrospective
• October 6–9 [Venue] Yamagata Citizens’ Hall (Small Hall)
Born in German-speaking Switzerland, Fredi M. Murer (1940–) is known as a leader of the internationally-acclaimed Swiss Nouveau Cinema movement that was active from the late 1960s through the 1980s, together with Daniel Schmid and Alain Tanner. Of note in Murer’s oeuvre is Alpine Fire (1985), set in an isolated mountain range. The film—awarded the Golden Leopard Prize at the Locarno Festival—depicts incest between a brother and sister, as well as the tragedy that eventually befalls them. Depending on the period in which they were made, Murer’s works may be classified variously as experimental film, documentary, or narrative film. The thread that unites them across genre, subject matter, and territory, is their filmic investigation into the limits and possibilities of communication. People peer into the distance through binoculars and enlarge objects with magnifying lenses. They open their bodies to the world, feeling the trembling of the ground with their skin, through gestures and cutaneous sensations that are by no means confined to language. In this moment, the artist in the film (Chicorée, Bernhard Luginbühl, Sad-is-Fiction) is he, the filmmaker, as well as we who watch. Ever still, the space framed by grim mountains (We mountain people in the mountains, The Green Mountain) is a small hamlet in the Swiss Alps, while at the same time it is tied to the collectives of Yamagata and Magino Village depicted by Ogawa Shinsuke, with whom Murer had a friendly association.
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Marcel 1962 / 18 min
Chicory 1966 / 27 min
Bernhard Luginbühl 1966 / 23 min • Oct. 6 20:30
Pacific–or the Contented 1965 / 60 min
Balance 1965 / 12 min
Sylvan 1965 / 12 min • Oct. 7 10:30
Sad-is-Fiction 1969 / 43 min
Vision of a Blind Man 1969 / 22 min • Oct. 7 12:40
Passages 1972 / 50 min
Christopher & Alexander 1973 / 46 min • Oct. 8 15:10
Zones 1979 / 99 min • Oct. 8 17:26
Alpine Fire 1985 / 117 min (Special Invitation Film) • Oct. 8 19:45
We Mountain People in the Mountains 1974 / 108 min • Oct. 9 13:00
The Green Mountain 1990 / 128 min • Oct. 9 15:30