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AN ART EXPERIMENT,

THAT REDISCOVERS THE TRUE NATURE

OF THE LANGUAGE OF FILM,

OR, ON THE FILM "THE DAUGHTER" („Die Tochter“)

BY Bernhard Kammel

One should perhaps have been professionally involved in cinema for a long time, have seen hundreds, if not thousands of films and be intimately familiar with the history of the development of the century-old ‘seventh art’ in order to be, like myself, surprised by the debut film by the Austrian Bernhard Kammel.

I must admit that I did not at first expect that "The Daughter" would be a film that rediscovers the nature of cinema. It seemed that in the middle of the 20th century, cinema had conclusively identified itself with the "new wave" of French cinema or with Italian neo-realism. At the close of the same century cinema had abandoned a part of its true nature for new technology in the interests of Hollywood-style entertainment.

Although over the past decade I've often thought that cinema in the 21st century will inevitably return to its true nature and above all to its unique language, which consists of the “elements” of reality itself, I would never have suspected that a debut film from Austria would affirm this so impressively. Particularly through the absolute insistence on one's very personal form of author’s expression, without making concessions to standard conventions in cinema. The author, Bernhard Kammel, enjoyed this rare luxury because he financed the film himself.

Bernhard Kammel is a talented photographer, and has studied philosophy. As screenwriter, director and cameraman, he visualised on the big screen his own intellectual reflection on the Universe and on Man as a little part of it.

He had achieved this using an unique combination of the apparently „unassociable” specifics of the static of the art photography and the motion in the art of film. This is the first time I have seen so mutually enriched the nature of both media, knowing of course that namely “moving photography” gave birth to cinema over 100 years ago.

Images on screen - shot in black and white.

Play with light - captured by the eye of a master photographer.

Untouched nature and a primeval forest: as if they are within the frame of a painting. And inside this “painting” the smallest or the most insignificant movements in the plant and animal world are captured by the eye of a master of film.

The sound track - the sounds in the nature that can only be heard in complete silence and with a conscious effort. But... in a marvellous synthesis with the "thinking" music by Mihaly Vig - the famous Hungarian composer of the not less famous Hungarian film director Bela Tarr.

Music - metaphysical, philosophical, outlining the secret oneness of "matter and spirit" in the Bernhard Kammel's film.

Kammel had resolutely decided to show many episodes as long shots - and this in the moments when we would usually expect close-ups.

The characters are very small in number.

The unfolding of the plot is only hinted at, and put aside as something unessential.

What for?

I believe it is to achieve a completely unexpected spiritual effect on our sensory organs. Thus, our self-perception of the material reality around us is suspended for 90 minutes, allowing us, as equal participants to fuse with the existential-philosophical understanding of life by the characters and their search for themselves not anywhere else but in the Universe. (And I was seized by a spiritual excitement that I had perhaps not felt since my youth.)

The starting point of the story is: a Daughter who returns to her birthplace in order to find her Father who had disappeared over 20 years before in the risky pursuit of an idea he believed in.

The search for one's Father is actually the search for oneself - on both an individual and a general human level.

The main question is not: “Who am I?”, but rather: “What am I?”

This question underlies the film-reflection on the life itself, on the entire world itself and on the mankind as a microscopic part of the universal order – nothing more.

To prove that from the beginning to the end the film revolves around questions of time and ephemeral.

The film proves that emphasizing not what happens in the action or the plot but emphasizing usually inconspicuous human gestures, frames of mind, power of attraction, and human spiritual contacts even through body language.

Bernhard Kammel hypnotizes us with the idea that as human beings we have to recognize ourselves as a part of the harmony of the Universe, bound by the laws of impermanence and infinity or to recognize us as a part of the eternity of the Universe and of the material and spiritual beauty of that Universe.

At this point I should mention the skill of the actors who contribute to this art experiment in a unique way. The manner, in which the actors had managed to achieve such organic unity in their emotional/psychological presence on the screen without the aid of an unfolding story plot, is astonishing to me.

This applies especially to the actress in the leading role, Sofia Tchernev, née Kuzeva, who provides an insight into the inner life of her character in every moment even when she does not have any words to say. Her inner life is, from the beginning to the end of the film, rich in questions, feelings, thoughts and quests for orientation in values. This is really incredible acting!

The other actors in the supporting roles shine with the same brilliance of this acting style. Meglena Karalambova plays the Mother, Vera Baranyai the Hungarian girl, Imo Heite the accordion-playing cook, Daniel Frantisek Kamen the Monk, and Robert Krotz the Father. As like-minded participants they managed to integrate themselves in the process of the realization of this author’s film by Bernhard Kammel as an organic unity in this exceptional philosophical film reflection on the Universe.

In the context of world cinema, "The Daughter" is an art provocation which provides an impressive reminder of the inexhaustible possibilities of the film language.

Translated by Alexander Zuckrow / Film und Video / Untertitel AG, Potsdam

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