Berlinalen 2015: I morgen er det duket for verdenspremiere på Peter Greenaways Eisenstein in Guanajuato, som må regnes blant høydepunktene i hovedkonkurransen under Berlinalen. Nå har filmens første trailer ankommet nettet.

Eisenstein in Guanajuato ser ut til å bli en corny, visuell fest, der Greenaway har valgt å portrettere montasjefilmens far, Sergei Eisenstein (gestaltet av finske Elmer Back), som en høylytt, eksentrisk snobb. Berlinalens festivalprogram beskriver filmen slik:

In 1931 the Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein travels to Guanajuato to direct his film Que viva México. There he encounters a new culture and its dealings with death; he also discovers another revolution – and his own body. Peter Greenaway depicts Eisenstein as an eccentric artist who travels to Mexico filled with the hubris of being an internationally celebrated star director. Once there, he gets into difficulties with his American financier, the novelist Upton Sinclair. At the same time he begins, in the simultaneously joyful and threatening foreign land, to re-evaluate his homeland and the Stalinist regime. And, in doing so, he undergoes the transition from a conceptual filmmaker into an artist fascinated by the human condition. Under his gaze, the signs, impressions, religious and pagan symbols of Mexican culture assemble themselves anew.

Making use of extreme close-ups, split-screens and a dramatic montage – all to enact the transformation of a hero who presents himself as a tragic clown – Greenaway deliberately quotes and modifies Eisenstein’s own cinematic tools. Scene by scene the film gets closer to Eisenstein the man, who finds himself surprised by an unexpected desire.

Med blant annet Kokken, tyven, hans kone og hennes elsker og Drowning by Numbers på samvittigheten, kan man trygt si at Greenaway vet å leke med filmatisk form. Men ettersom verken komponist Michael Nyman eller fotograf Sacha Vierny bidrar (sistnevnte gikk bort i 2001), er det vanskelig å forestille seg at Greenaway er i stand til å levere noe på samme skyhøye nivå som i sine glansdager. Når det er sagt, er vi selvfølgelig åpne for en positiv overraskelse!

Se den ferske traileren, plakaten og noen utvalgte frysbilder her:

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