February 2012, arsenal cinema
Ulrike Ottinger's Berlin Trilogy
BILDNIS EINER TRINKERIN, 1979
From February 26 to 29, we are showing Ulrike Ottinger's Berlin trilogy to wrap up our series on her work: BILDNIS EINER TRINKERIN - ALLER JAMAIS RETOUR (PORTRAIT OF A FEMALE DRUNKARD, 1979), FREAK ORLANDO (1981) and DORIAN GRAY IM SPIEGEL DER BOULEVARDPRESSE (THE IMAGE OF DORIAN GRAY IN THE YELLOW PRESS, 1984).
BILDNIS EINER TRINKERIN – ALLER JAMAIS RETOUR (Portrait of a Female Drunkard. Ticket of No Return BRD 1979, 26.2.) This stylized composition provides a sightseeing trip through Berlin, an examination of the city’s topography based on a particular route. The unnamed traveler who arrives at Tegel Airport wants to pursue her passion – drinking – in an undisturbed manner.
FREAK ORLANDO (BRD 1981, 27.2.) tells an "histoire du monde" that encompasses errors, incompetence, thirst for power, fear, madness, cruelty and everyday life and uses freaks as a paradigm for a small theater of the world in five episodes. "This is not a charitable film that pleads understanding for the abnormal. It deploys many tricks but not the one that cinema is usually based upon – identification. It quotes the famous film by Tod Browning (1932) in which the cinema's capacity to do wonders is belied by an unimaginable show with real-life monsters. But it in itself is different." (Frieda Grafe)
DORIAN GRAY IM SPIEGEL DER BOULEVARDPRESSE (The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press, BRD 1984, 29.2.) exposes the seductive and ensnaring power of a sublimated totalitarianism – that of the media. Frau Dr. Mabuse, the head of a media corporation, creates a person who is completely dependent on her, the androgynous Dorian Gray. "In the complexity of its significance, the title corresponds to the film. The obvious association is first with Dorian Gray and literature, and then with narcissism, dandyism and the fin de siècle. I took an example in the yellow press – already known as society news when Proust was around – to say something in a film about a new form of exploitation of power, about the specific possibilities of a media corporation." (Ulrike Ottinger)
