Film ist. a Girl and a Gun

Cinema as the continuation and reproduction of fire: clouds of smoke billow, electric shocks twitch in the black sky, a huge fire eats its way through the images. But the unleashed elemental forces are only the beginning: Deutsch called his mythologically based work, the third part of his Film ist. series, a ‘film drama in 5 acts’: a collection of images from the first four decades of the cinematographic era, viragated in blood-red, shiny gold and icy blue. Nature is joined by the belligerent human body and with it the libido: this film revolves around war, the cosmos and Eros. The depiction of bodies and muscles: a single intoxicatingly intoxicating triumph of the will. The film stars: Zarah Leander, Willi Forst and an anonymous army of mimes from feature films, newsreels and the porn industry. Work is carried out on the body, from coitus to autopsy. Thus death, in film as in life, retains the upper hand. (Stefan Grissemann)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum