Picture of Light

In his attempt to capture the Northern Lights on film, Peter Mettler not only wanders through Canada's icy landscapes, but also embarks on a critical confrontation with a culture dominated by images. Between a philosophical voice-over narration, shots of nature that aim for the transcendental and curious encounters between humans and animals, a world is revealed in which any experience of reality runs the risk of becoming just another image in the all-suffocating flood of images. The fleeting nature of light saves perception here and cinema shimmers once again precisely when it reaches its limits. An outstanding and particularly resonant representative of that unnamed genre in which people travel with a camera to the proverbial end of the world to find images that have not yet been used up. (Patrick Holzapfel)

Introduction by Patrick Holzapfel

Photo: Austrian Film Museum