|
|
****** |
|
OPENING FILM
Thursday 5 october / 6 pm
Maison du Mexique
Cité internationale universitaire de Paris
|
The Great Wall
|
|
 |
Tadhg O'Sullivan
Irland
2015 | 1:14:00
‘The Great Wall has been completed at its most southerly point.’ So
begins Kafka’s short story ‘At the Building of the Great Wall of
China’, and so, at Europe’s heavily militarised south-eastern
frontier, begins this film. In the shadow of its own narratives of
freedom, Europe has been quietly building its own great wall. Like its
famous Chinese precursor, this wall has been piecemeal in
construction, diverse in form and dubious in utility. Gradually
cohering across the continent, this system of enclosure and exclusion
is urged upon a populace seemingly willing to accept its necessity and
to contribute to its building.
From Europe’s edges, The Great Wall moves across various unidentified
fortified landscapes, pausing with those whose lives are framed by
borders and walls. Moving inward toward the seat of power, the film
holds the European project up to a dazzling cinematic light, refracted
through Kafka’s mysterious text; ultimately questioning the nature of
power, within Europe and beyond.
"The Great Wall" a magnific audiovisual work, a metaphorical
masterpiece about metastructures of power in our societies.
How is this possible? Well, you need to read Kafka and discover, that
in his text "Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer", noted in form of
fragments in 1917, and published post mortem, he discribes in a
visonary way a scenario of worldwide bounderies and frontier
strategies. |
| |
|
|
|
