The Invisible Frame (2009)

Director:

Cynthia Beatt

Writer:

Cynthia Beatt (writer)

Release Date:

12 November 2009 (Germany)

Genre:

Documentary

Cast

Tilda Swinton

...

The Cyclist

Directed by
Cynthia Beatt

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Cynthia Beatt		writer

Produced by
Inge Classen	....	producer
Frieder Schlaich	....	producer

Original Music by
Simon Fisher-Turner

Cinematography by
Ute Freund

Film Editing by
Dörte Völz-Mammarella

Production Management
Sabine Steyer	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Johannes Blume	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Simon Fisher-Turner	....	sound designer
Jochen Jezussek	....	sound
Frank Kruse	....	sound mixer
Matthias Lempert	....	sound re-recording mixer

Visual Effects by
Stefan Carl-McGrath	....	digital lab supervisor
Claudia Gittel	....	digital colorist

Camera and Electrical Department
Robert Brecko	....	still photographer
Sandro Kopp	....	key grip
Matthias Maaß	....	grip
Markus Otto	....	assistant camera
Mathieu Rech	....	grip
Nico Storch	....	grip

Editorial Department
Kolja Kunt	....	assistant editor

Other crew
Roman Savary	....	location manager

Production Companies

• Auswärtiges Amt (in association with)
• Filmgalerie 451
• Goethe-Institut (in association with)
• ZDF / 3sat

Distributors

• Filmgalerie 451 (2009) (Germany) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

60 min

Country:

Germany

Language:

German | English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Auswärtiges Amt

Movie Connections:

Follows Cycling the Frame (1988) (TV)

Cynthia Beatts mesmerising film invites us to look inside ourselves for a truth which can guide us through the existential void.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The Invisible Frame unfolds as a cycle journey along the line of the former Berlin Wall but this film is artful and philosophical rather than nostalgic. It's a stream of images meandering through that "end of the day" atmosphere – dreamy, contemplative, a touch wistful, occasionally soliloquised into prose, emotion turned into words - at other times it swirls along with ethereal sounds which echo around inside you, sounds turned into emotion. And yet half submerged within its flowing imagery resides a poignant philosophical question.

Berlin with its absurd wall, its Nazi past, its ideological split into east and west is an example par excellence of that existential stumbling block upon which some of the best existential thinkers have founded:- what can we do to make life endurable if the universe really has neither god, purpose, values or meaning ? Heidegger chose Nazi-ism and Sartre Marxism but both they and Berlin now lie testament to the failure of those answers. However this film's interplay of art and philosophy really does produce some quite interesting propositions. The hallmark of a good film is its capacity to trigger an encounter with your own soul and the Invisible Frame does just that.

The street musician at the beginning is a "Pied Piper" motif, heralding the passage from our everyday standpoint to an inner or psychic standpoint. The enigmatic and beguiling cyclist, Tilda Swinton (Oscar winner 2008),leads us through a chthonic landscape, transforming every scene into a tantalising question. She meditates on life, reads a book called "Alone in Berlin" and never asks for directions underlining that this is an inner journey from collective opinions towards individual insight. The person with whom she has most contact, is a child with a bow and arrow. This lost son of Hamelin (like all the children you see) represents our curiosity, joy, openness and spontaneity which can make life endurable. It rubs off on the cyclist because later she etches an arrow, rune-like, into the dirt. The arrow is a very old symbol whose meaning has survived through to our day in its use to depict North on maps – it points to the North star which never sets but remains above the horizon for travellers to orientate themselves – it is our guiding star. Like the picture of Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, which she stops by, she has squared the circle and found a new psychological orientation. Her closing words "open sesame" bring her back into our everyday world where she began, just like the circuit of the wall has brought her back to her starting point.

You may frown at my interpretation and the film's texts do literally speak for themselves but for me the film scores in its ability to coax you to turn inward and retrieve from the depths of your own being a reply to the absurdity of existence.