Viennese director Peter Kern put it in a nutshell: "I dislike the art of carelessness. You have to take up a stance on everything in life." Which is exactly what he does with his latest feature film KING KONGS TRÄNEN, premiered at this year’s Diagonale in Graz. This film is nothing less than 72 minutes of honesty and intelligence on a very personal level. The kind of cinema experience that sends chills up and down your spine, even a few days after watching it. Peter Kern once again is at his strongest when he gets seriously personal. Some may love it but I guess even more people may hate that. However, the film’s intelligent and crispy execution is undeniable. In his work Kern is always strong when he is in a reflective mode, clearly taking himself as the point of departure. Where is the cleverness in doing that? Well, if a movie done that way still contains so many heartbreaking sentences and single takes that you feel yourself deeply understood and also welcomed in a stranger’s work of art, then you can only call it cleverness. Maybe that is also a very romantic and idealistic attitude, dangerous enough to have in contemporary cinema. But surely there is nothing wrong about that. Once again Kern gives us an insight into his private life, presenting his flat along with his companions. People he is surrounded by in his daily life, at least, he makes it look like that. He shares his cravings for revenge when it comes to mediocre art, artists and critics. Of course music once again becomes important here and Kern’s way of showing what being "different" means: Being fat, homosexual and asthmatic. Representing everything that is bad-mouthed in a clean, straight and healthy world. But he also talks about a strong sensibility and a tremendous tenderness. Kern laments society, above all its lack of understanding. Society for him always equals the nice and beautiful, the healthy and trimmed people. There does not seem to be a chance that he will ever change his point of view. On the contrary, over the years he seems to be almost reassured in his position; in other words more at ease nowadays while he still loves to provoke his audience. Peter Kern might like it or not, but KING KONGS TRÄNEN is one of his purest films.

This year’s Diagonale was also about admiring the work of another controversially acclaimed director. This year’s international guest was German filmmaker Romuald Karmakar. The festival screened amongst others short films like COUP DE BOULE (1987), DEMONTAGE IX, UNTERNEHMEN STAHLGLOCKE (1991) and RAMSES (2009), but also Karmakar’s latest documentary feature VILLALOBOS (2009). This portrait of famous Berlin based DJ Villalobos in a surprising and subtle way relates to Karmakar’s core topic of fascism. And of course it provoked several people from the audience. Nothing new there, you might say. Just what is it about the German director that someone in the audience always gets upset about Karmakar’s work? Let's try this one as a possible explanation, actually very much Kern-like: I assume it is about Karmakar’s looks, or rather his appearance. Most people expect someone else. When they watch his movies and see themselves confronted with a good looking man in his forties, they feel helpless and that’s what happened at Diagonale, too. A young woman left the cinema, breathing hard and slamming doors while Karmakar gave his best to answer her questions in a calm manner. VILLALOBOS comes along as a Trojan horse: the dictator of music, making people dance and feel as he pleases, sometimes crossing the boundaries. The young audience was seemingly attracted by this film, asking a few questions concerning the DJ after the screening. Leaving the cinema, a young man asked me "Karmakar was doing it again, right?" Yes, he did. Provoking and we got trapped. If you also got trapped by Karmakar there is now the possibility to read about his films, since the Austrian Filmmuseum has finally published a wonderful book on his work this year.

There is no way round "masterpiece" declarations when it comes to Austrian filmmaker Peter Schreiner and his latest film TOTÓ (2009). This portrait of Calabresian Antonio Cotroneo deals with the problem of speechlessness. Our society offers many opportunities to talk about unhappiness. But where have all the words gone when you are happy and can’t express it? Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent, as Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein put it. It is not easy to locate happiness. So Schreiner follows Cotroneo who is called Totó by his friends. He now lives in Vienna with his family and travels back home to answer his very personal questions about happiness. Schreiner never looks down on his protagonist, but rather gives him space and a helping hand for Totó’s heartfelt despair. It seems pointless to worry about happiness because you never seem to realise it when you are already holding in your own hands. Totó is a happy man and Schreiner reassures us that he might know some day...

Austrian experimental films, they still take my breath away. But not everyone in the audience is delighted like I am: "I need something narrative", a young man shakes his head. Well, in my point of view enough stories were told. Like in GYRE (2009) by Björn Kämmerer. A strong film about angles and rhythm. When the angle changes will the picture also change? Yes, it will and so Kämmerer sends some black cubes over the screen, changes their flow and rhythm and opens the view onto a wooden house and its interior. So we have walls and windows and only in the end you realise that there is no door. Turning and circling, pure trance in black and white.

The latest work by Johann Lurf takes original footage material as a point of departure for the story, irritating some journalists who reproachfully called the filmmaker’s attitude "intellectual lazyness". The German title is a pangram, comprising all the alphabet’s letters in one sentence: ZWÖLF BOXKÄMPFER JAGEN VIKTOR QUER ÜBER DEN GROSSEN SYLTER DEICH 140 9. For years Lurf, who works part time as a projectionist, collected single frames of film material, put them together and now trusts the audience’s eyes to develop a story behind it all. He leaves you with nothing less than your eyes and mind spinning. The title, however, also refers to a practical experience in the projection booth. The sentence is there on the screen but no prefigured content will disturb the projectionist from doing his work.

The work of Barbara Doser and Hofstetter Kurt makes clear that it is not all about watching a film but also about hearing a film. In ZART B (2010) the sound-collage and composition by Hofstetter supports Doser’s visualization of the Möbius strip principle. Forward and backward it is all the same: single tones and single black and white vibrations. It may sound simple for the first moment but it is a real challenge to watch and listen to. And it is fun, too.

And when it comes to fun and sensual watching there is still and again the Austrian artist Thomas Draschan, known for his collages originating from his enormous collection of original pictures from the 1920ies up to contemporary material. At this year’s Diagonale his short film FREUDE (2009) was screened. When intelligence and wicked charm meet, what is left to desire? In an interview he stated that he wanted to encourage a young audience to use drugs and sex as radical and also joyful means. FREUDE might be a translation of this joyfulness as we find the single frames again with a flickering sound-editing, pushing up the audience’s pulse rate as Draschan likes it.

Josef Dabernig takes it more easy but his work is no less exciting for it. His short film HERNA (2010) is a story of disturbing simplicity. A young couple park their car at the roadside. The man gets out of the car while the woman stays put, holding a little child on her lap. Obviously they are both going to wait for the guy who is now entering a little suburban bar and starts gambling. This is basically what the pictures coldly shot in black and white tell us. But the sound tells us a different story. We listen to a radio play, written by Bruno Pellandini, a Swiss author living in Vienna: two ladies discuss the pros and cons of a certain Mr Koenig! They enter a pub together and by chance meet the guy there, talking about financial issues. It is a love story, of course, told in wonderfully polished German sentences. But the pictures keep us going with the young man gambling and the young woman still sitting in the car, waiting for him with the little child on her lap.

Contributor details

Claudia Siefen works as a film critic, catalogue editor and essayist, focussing on cinema history. She has spent eight years working as a film editor on documentaries. Born in Cologne, Germany, she has lived and worked in Vienna, Austria, since 2007.