
About a year ago, I first learned about Werner Schroeter, some months later my girlfriend found in Fnac hidden behind a pile of rubbish a VHS for this film, produced by the claimed portuguese Paulo Branco, the same producer of some Marguerite Duras films, Raoul Ruiz, Chantal Akerman, producer of most of Werner Schroeter films amoung several others is list is extensive and impressive, this vhs is long out of print and it costed a merely 5 or 6 euros.
As for the film itself, I remember the first time I watched it I was quite bored with it and find it pretentious but very beautiful to look at. I went to sleep right after and thought I would soon forget about it. That same night I dreamt I was drowning in a sea of cancerigenous roses, turning from red to brown, from brown to black. As they glued themselves to my body they entered in my veins and made be a vegetal existence, like a stone with a conscious trapped in a wall. I woke up marvelled with this dream, and I decided to change my perspective on watching this film, and turned off the brain and other vital urges, and opened my heart to it. Immeadeatily I was immersed in it, exploring a world I never expected and some beautiful sequences that made me cry in anguish. As the film finished I was an emotional mess, tired like I've been through some kind of funeral of someone dear to me. I got up, went to wash my face and I looked myself in the mirror and I realized something had died in me. A part of my desire to rationalize reality. I always saw films with my balls or with my heart, but never like this, it took me to an entire different level of perception. Whilst this may seem bullshit to most of you, it was one of my most heartfelt experiences with a film.
Regarding the subtitles, those fuckers that launched the vhs, made subtitles, while this film should NEVER EVER had them. Schroeter forbad the usage of subtitles and it's clearly why. This is a visual experience enhaced by music, and that music is also composed with the usage of several different languages. So the words here are no more than music, than ryhtm. So no I will not -ever- translate the subtitles and I curse the man behind them. Watch it without them appreciate the music within the words, not what the words mean.




I upload this as an hommage to Magdalena Montezuma the main actress who died two weeks after the shooting of this film, died at the early age of 41. Beauty never dies.