The Impossible Picture

A fictional family portrait. Everything disappears. The pictures look old. Juni ‘56. Die Familie im Garten (June ’56. The Family in the Garden). Is it a mockumentary, a historical film or a home video? The father has died. People are speaking Austrian German. There’s something sinister going on in Sandra Wollner’s graduation film. What exactly is unclear. Afterwards, Wollner made the eerie science fiction film The Trouble with Being Born. Here, we’re in the past. Here, much seems ordinary at first glance. Seemingly, the shots have no plot, meandering through the stuffy air of a family’s home. Raspberry juice is drunk and schnapps, lots of schnapps. The Reichswehr is mentioned. Everything seems cramped; each room a cage in which the middle class conventionally eats cake. A great experiment is underway here, becoming more and more concrete, more and more brutal, clearer and more and more focused. The word radical is not often used appropriately, especially when it comes to form. But it is here. Here, someone wants something. Here, someone dares to do something. Here, clandestinely, something really great has been achieved. 

Image © sixpack:film