No events found. Please change your filter settings.
For information on accessibility, wheelchair spaces and reservation options, please refer to the websites of the cinemas. The cinema schedule is without guarantee.
Das asthenische Syndrom
After her husband’s death, a woman loses the ground beneath her feet: an immediate collapse of strength, asthenia. It then turns out that this stark black-and-white sequence is a film within the film. The actress appears before the lowered curtain to meet the audience—who collectively leave the theater. Only the teacher Nikolai remains behind, having peacefully fallen asleep. In a Buñuelian twist, one dream flows into another, one state of exhaustion into the next. Death, too, becomes a dream—and perhaps a release from total communication breakdown. In the end, Nikolai is unable to awaken: his unconscious body is swallowed by darkness, the metro tunnel, the void.
The central work of cult director Kira Muratova—whose filmmaking also inspired the director of NO MERCY—this film won the Silver Bear at the 1990 Berlinale and stands as a remarkable avant-garde masterpiece of Soviet cinema.