Walk the Walk
Robert Kramer, FR/CH 1996Screenplay: Robert Kramer; Cinematography: Richard Copans, Katel Dijan, Blaise Bauquis, Robert Kramer; Editing: Christine Benoît, Béatrice Wick, Keja Kramer, Robert Kramer; Music: Barre Phillips; Cast: Jacques Martial, Betsabée Haas, Laure Duthilleul, Eliane Boisgard. 35mm, color, 115 min. French with German subtitles
A family disintegrates and goes its separate ways. The father (Jacques Martial) is an athlete with ankle problems, the mother (Laure Duthilleul) a biologist, their teenage daughter an avid singer (Betsabée Haas). The film takes turns following each of them. The daughter's journey takes her from Marseille via Strasbourg to Zurich's open drug scene and finally to Berlin. The father is drawn to Odessa, while the mother remains behind her microscope in southern France. Film scholar Margrit Tröhler: "The three stories are interwoven like in a fugue, with each absorbing the verve of the other and passing it on to the next. Although the characters' travel movements are centrifugal, the images come together to form a scintillating whole akin to a mosaic thanks to the consistent, palpable presence of the filmmaker as a companion and an interlocutor: he is the fourth character." Kramer's films always broke down boundaries between documentary and fiction; in this film, he achieves a hybrid completely novel at the time. (V.P.)
With Richard Copans in attendance on October 21, 2024
Screening dates:
