Kumu Documentary: Anselm – Das Rauschen der Zeit
Dir Wim Wenders
Germany 2023, 93 min
In German, with English subtitles
Introduction by Sirje Helme
The Oscar-nominated director Wim Wenders (Buena Vista Social Club, Salt of the Earth and Pina) traces the life of Anselm Kiefer, one of the most innovative and influential fine artists working today. For more than five decades, Kiefer’s paintings and sculptures have confronted his native Germany’s dark past through a vast network of cultural references in a dazzling mixture of 35 mm and 16 mm film stocks, with a distinctive focus on physical elements: from lead, glass and textiles to found and incinerated organic matter. As he did for his sublime portrait of Pina Bausch in 2011, Wenders (born the same year as Kiefer, during the last months of World War II) employs groundbreaking stereoscopic cinematography to transport us to key chapters of Kiefer’s early life in post-Nazi Germany and throughout his 100-acre studio in France, a present-day labyrinth of the artist’s haunting obsessions. Anselm, which debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is a portrait of an artist at work like you’ve never seen before, an indelible visual experience and a vivid tour of Kiefer’s imposing yet intricately textured works.
Visually thrilling and refreshingly unconventional, Anselm is a mesmerising tribute to a brilliant artist’s life and legacy.
