All language subtitles for Ulrike Ottinger - Die Nomadin vom See

Ulrike Ottinger
NOMAD FROM THE LAKE

To be born near water is a blessing.
One I share with Ulrike Ottinger.

We both come from Lake Constance.

And every now and again,
our paths have crossed.

Like me, she loves the lake and water,

but she is also drawn
to distant lands and travel.

She works in many different art forms:
painting, photography, film...

She is particularly renowned
as a director:

Opulent fantasies, magical figures,

surreal style, exotic costumes,

grotesque scenes and ironic music

characterise her films.

During my schooldays in the early 1970s,

it was said in Constance she
was making a film about female pirates.

A Chinese junk was seen.

It awakened our curiosity.

MADAME X
AN ABSOLUTE RULER

Women and sexuality
was a big issue back then.

With courage and humour
she told the story

of women setting sail
for gold, love and adventure.

"Madame X - An Absolute Ruler"

caused an uproar.

There were very few programmes then.

So lots of people saw it,

and it met with massive approval...

but it also caused
an awful lot of outrage.

But the people at the broadcaster ZDF
were very happy about this excitement.

They said, this is just what we need:

That kind of debate
is exactly what we wanted.

The letters poured in...
by the bucketful.

People escaped from their
little towns and villages

and gathered in front of our apartment.

It was unbelievable!

That certainly made a big impression.

It seems to have fired
many people's imaginations,

people who wanted something else

yes, indeed.

And I hope their enthusiasm

their brief enthusiasm for the film

encouraged them to do their own thing.

Yes, that would be nice.

Luckily for us, after she finished
studying art in Paris,

she returned to Constance and founded
the film-club-gallery "Salzbllchsle".

There, we pupils,
saw pictures and films

never yet seen in our little town.

We saw such extreme actors
as Magdalena Montezuma,

in Werner Schroeter's
first black and white films.

I understood none of it,
but I felt their power.

It spoke to us of another kind of life,
a completely new aesthetic,

and an exciting definition
of sexuality and being a woman.

Here we saw the first men with long hair

and the first women with cigars.

We smoked along,
played along with the 'big kids'.

I love you, I love you,
I love you, I love you...

DORIAN GRAY IN THE MIRROR OF
THE YELLOW PRESS,1984

This is the house.

I was born in this house.

As children, we used to swim here
in our trunks.

Yes, it was very nice to grow up here.

Good day.
- Hello.

May I come in?

I had a little hand-painted sign
on the entrance there.

It read: "Uli's Studio for Young Art -
follow the red string".

And I put up a red string
that went all the way up the stairs...

until one reached my studio.

ULI'S STUDIO FOR YOUNG ART

Here there were paintings or mirrors.

And you have to imagine that there were
lots of spinets standing around.

The old fittings are really lovely,
the old key.

I even remember the key,
because we had it for years.

My mother often came here
in the evening to play music.

My mother was a passionate
piano and spinet player,

and she always came here to play.

So we usually sat here in the evening,
and then played music.

And sang.

With me, you're in luck

With me, you are
the only one in the world

With me, you are beautiful,
"I tried to explain"

With me, you are beautiful
"It means that you're grand"

Father's a drunk
Can't leave vodka alone

My sister runs around
Shame upon us!

With me, I am beautiful...
With me, I'm in luck

With me, I'm the most beautiful of all

Our first trip brought us to Holland,

that was just after the war.

Around the same time

I also took my first photograph.

My mother gave me a wonderful little

Retina camera as a gift.

And then there were these two
wonderfully dressed Indian gentlemen.

One with a turban,

the other was wearing a very elegant suit

with a handkerchief in the pocket
and a trench coat.

I was so fascinated by these
interesting looking gentlemen,

that I asked my mother
if I could take a photo of them.

She told me what to say in English

and said: "Only if you ask
and if they give you permission."

And so I asked them in English,
parroting the words of my mother.

Of course they were charming
and smiled for the camera.

That was my first photograph.

In early June,
Ulrike Ottinger invited her friends

to the restaurant Le Couscous,
to celebrate her birthday.

Her warning: "If the weather is bad

it could get a little tight",
seemed innocuous.

But indeed, the wooden building
housed only a small kitchen

with a tiny dining space.

It would have been impossible,

to fit even a fraction
of the 20 or 30 guests who turned up.

And so we sat in the pouring rain.

Those who had umbrellas

held it over themselves
and their neighbour all evening.

Like a scene from a Fellini film.

The Tunisian owner and chef

spoiled us with his warm hospitality
and delicious couscous.

No one seemed to be bothered
by the fact that the wine and food

were gradually being watered down
by the rain.

Where were we?
In our own or in a foreign culture?

At home or abroad?

In the real or the imaginary?

You see, that question depends
on an abstract opposition,

dividing one thing from another
that really belongs together.

Talking about
your own or a foreign culture

is really just an aid, a construction,

in order to bring some semblance of order
to the heterogeneity of reality,

in order to be able to approach
multiplicity through simplicity.

TEXT BY HANS-JURGEN HEINRICHS

DORIAN GRAY IN THE MIRROR OF
THE YELLOW PRESS,1984

Now it gets interesting.

Now everyone's gone,
we can have some fun.

Now we can tattle about everyone.
But we won't, as we're in good company,

namely each other's!

Her friends know how she loves her work
and how meticulously she plans:

projects, trips, exhibitions.

In 2011 alone,
she filmed and edited a long film,

and had two big exhibitions in Berlin.

She's never been as lazy
as in recent years.

Yes, always...

See you very soon.

Goodnight.
- Goodnight.

She was invited to Cannes with her films,
to the MOMA in New York,

to Dubai and Seoul,
to name just a few destinations.

Many of her films have won awards.

In her production office in Berlin,

all the strands of her activities
come together.

Ulrike Ottinger Film Production, Schmidt.

The shoot for her new film "Under Snow"
took place in Echigo, in Japan.

Snow blankets the winter landscape.

The film combines staged
and documentary elements,

the historical and the contemporary.

UNDER SNOW, 2011

It's snowing, it's snowing
and it won't stop.

Mountains and fields
wear cotton hats of snow.

The trees blossom with snow flowers.

ULRIKE OTTINGER'S APARTMENT,
BERLIN

In the film she creates a kind
of fairy tale from three elements:

Kabuki, poetry,
and the reality of the land of snow.

After the shoot in the freezing cold,
I meet her in Berlin.

RETURNING FROM MAKING
"UNDER SNOW"

Even before I left,
at four in the morning,

there was a knock at my door
and I was given gifts.

In Japan it's not customary
to open presents immediately.

You open them when you get home.

I haven't actually opened these.
Should I open them? Really?

I really don't know what it is.

They were from people
who had already given us so much...

through their presence
and through the things they showed us.

Oh, it's a beautiful scarf.

Ah, now this is something interesting.
This here...

Some of these are the crystals
formed in snowflakes.

There's a famous book,
by an emperor no less,

who made drawings of the
infinite variety of snowflakes.

You can see it when it's very cold,

if you let snow fall on a black board.

Then you will make
these crystals visible.

He also wrote down the 22 words for snow.

Peony-snow,
also known as blossom-snow-flurry.

Rice-powder snow,
which falls fast and thick.

Drum-snow for hail, froth-snow.

First-snow or number-one-snow,

and snow-dumplings
for very large hailstones.

Now here is something really special.

Namely...

In the past there was a game

played with a shuttlecock.
So this is a shuttlecock.

You can see it in old pictures.

They don't actually play it anymore.

But I asked

and they said:
"We can do it for you."

And then they actually played
in their snow shoes

and made a square, like they used to,

by trampling the snow
in their snow shoes,

which are very wide.

And the men who played it
thought it was so much fun

that they told me:
"We're going to start playing again."

And I think they really took it up again.

On my last evening
at a very official reception,

I told the story of the shuttlecock
that they made for me.

And I said that

the way one has to catch the shuttlecock

is just as swift
as the way we are always catching images

that were shot in our direction.

And then I said

that how one gives back these images
is also a kind of game.

And they seemed delighted at this.

One second...

Should I do it again

or will you cut it together later?

Well... I could,
but maybe we'll tn] it once more.

I think maybe the bells should be quieter

and...
with a little bit more reverberation.

The few days she has off each year

she likes to spend where she grew up...
on Lake Constance.

HEGNE, LAKE CONSTANCE
PARENTAL HOME

Well, you can see for yourselves,

this is where I store my pictures.

It was some...
two years after my mother died,

that I decided
to really look at everything again.

I sorted it all out.

So these are my pictures

from roughly the fifties

up until I stopped painting in '68.

But some of the things here
are also from my friends in Paris.

And my parents' collection is here too.

It was quite hard work
to reorganise everything.

I really opened even] drawer
and looked at even] scrap of paper.

And somehow this big sorting
and clearing out project here,

and contemplating, so to speak...
two lives:

those of my parents,

who were very
different but both very intense,

and also thinking about my own past...

all of this actually made me...

consider a few things
in a completely new light.

And the exhibition in the
"Haus der Kulturen der Welt" in Berlin,

I think it really benefited

from my contemplation here.

I started to think a lot

about what memory is, what objects are.

And how objects
are brought to life by memory.

How they are brought back to life.

I love this landscape more than anything.

I find that...

I feel comfortable in this landscape.

And here...
Nature is somehow gentle here.

It has something very mellow.

But I don't think
I'd like to live here permanently.

I decided that very early on.
I was very young when I left home

TICKET OF NO RETURN, 1979

As an artist,
I wanted to be in a city.

I originally wanted to go to New York,
but I went to Berlin.

I was immediately fascinated by Berlin.

That was '73, autumn of '73.

Because...

all of German history,
the history of the war, was visible here.

I was utterly fascinated by that.

So I decided that I would really like
to make films in this city.

I looked for an apartment straight away
and Tabea Blumenschein followed me.

I spent a lot of time
familiarising myself with the city.

I spent the first few years

simply wandering around,
and I really enjoyed it.

Sometimes, on my little excursions,
I would just follow the Wall,

from the inner city
to the industrial areas.

Later on I made the Berlin trilogy:

"Ticket of No Return", "Freak Orlando",

and "Dorian Gray
in the Mirror of the Yellow Press".

They show very different parts of Berlin.

TICKET OF NO RETURN, 1979

In "Ticket of No Return",

the bars in Kreuzberg
feature heavily, of course.

In "Freak Orlando",
it's all industrial architecture,

150 years of industrial architecture

Many buildings that have been demolished
and no longer exist.

Old Berliners have even said to me
that they had never seen Berlin this way.

In "Freak Orlando"
she depicts self-castigation,

the abuse of power, torture, terror,

the Middle Ages and utopia,

nightmarish visions,
religious and sexual taboos.

An extreme and, to me,
most enigmatic film.

It's an invitation to take part
in a unique event.

I've acted in hundreds of films.

None of them come close to the experience
you have when you work with Ulrike.

Firstly, there are lots
of people you know,

PANORAMA DIRECTOR/BERLINALE

secondly, you meet new
and interesting people.

True.

AUTHOR/COMPOSER

And you don't know where
it's coming from or going.

The whole thing is like a happening.

It's your fault!

It's your fault!

Sometimes the costumes

are pretty bizarre.
- Sometimes the people are pretty bizarre.

I've even performed naked once.
I wouldn't have for anyone else.

In the swimming pool. With no water.

No, we were standing in water.
- You're right.

We were standing opposite each other,
naked and knee-deep in water

and had to hold a black bar
in front of our face.

But not in front of your privates.

No, but we couldn't see each other
because of the black bar.

But I saw it.
- Well, you can see it on screen anyway.

She has a great sense of humour,

she's a very witty,
intelligent and funny woman

and of course she's playful too...

She plays with abnormalities...
No, I don't like that word.

She plays with convention,
she exposes it.

Humanity is shown as it is,

as if she had pulled back
the curtains of convention.

Suddenly
we're all very different creatures.

None of us are simply black or white,
woman or man.

We're always in between, that's reality.

That's what I get from her work.
It's a real cabinet of curiosities,

peculiarity isn't exposed, but,
rather, underlined as the individual.

That's right.

I don't know how many people
still remember Franca Magnani.

The extremely talented
Italian-German TV journalist.

I can make out the silhouette
of a procession on the hill

which grows crazier
the closer it is to the saviour.

She also performed in "Freak Orlando",

providing commentary for something.

So she actually did her normal job
in the film.

And then she saw the men in leather
and the little people...

the whole cabinet,

which one normally
doesn't encounter in daily life.

And she just said: "Those poor people."

And I was really bemused.

A statement like that coming
from a journalist I respected,

one who became so famous
for her particular form of journalism.

Then you realise that it has nothing
to do with class or intelligence.

I was one of the leather men.
She meant me, too.

"Those poor people."
I'll never forget it.

There are
a lot of political elements too,

even though it's the aesthetic cornucopia
that's in the foreground.

The political elements, as I see them...

Of course everyone
interprets things differently,

but I look at it this way:

It's about the monsters
that we all actually are.

And it's not about pretending
things are different,

namely that we're all united
and the others are someone else.

The difference is
showing being human as a quality

and not as something
unifying and pacifying.

And at the same time you have
the most peaceful atmosphere imaginable

on set, but tangible in the film too.

I would call it a pack of animals.

She looks at men in a way
that men would never look at men,

in a way that no male director
would ever put men on screen.

That's one of her strengths.

She picks something
that she considers extremely masculine

or where there's a kind of
absence of femininity.

And that's gay men.

I think it's really interesting
from the point of view of ritual,

because of course we have
lots of little rituals.

But entire nations,

above all those without running water,
are held together as a group by rituals.

Of course they're no guarantee
for a happy life or personal freedom.

On the contrary,
they're generally mechanisms

to keep people in line.

But that's the source of art,

you might say,
and that of artistry.

In Portugal,

the Christian king spoke the following
to his daughter Wilgeforte:

For reasons of state

I kindly request

that you marry
the powerful foreign Satrap...

Or you shall be my daughter no more!

I've always been inspired
by lots of different things.

Although it always ends up
entirely transformed.

I have my sources of inspiration,
that really come from all over the world,

from all periods of time,
and I like to be open about that.

Because we don't live in a vacuum.

We've all got a history
and I'm very interested in it.

LAOCOON & SONS, 1972

Fairy tales should survive.

I am an image.

I am a fairy tale.

and this is... the music

These are the voices

of women...

I started making my first film
at Lake Constance,

"Laocoon and Sons".

Most of my friends acted in it.

The events in Paris in May '68
really troubled her.

Her first film reflects this violence.

A waltz, a waltz...

give me a waltz...

yes, yes, waltz. Yes.

And also...

It's actually based on a nightmare,

a recurring one I had in Paris,
shortly before I left.

I was in my little studio,

in the attic in Constance,

There was a fire
and all my art work was burning.

I rang my parents first,
but they couldn't help me.

Back then I had a little,
red toy telephone.

You little swine,
seven of you there are...

Then I pick up the phone again

and ring Pierre Bourdieu,
but he couldn't help me either.

Then I call Althusser,
whose lectures I was attending.

That philosopher.
But he couldn't help me either.

So finally I grab the red telephone

and call the fire brigade.
But what happens?

The door opens,
I hear them coming up the stairs.

The fire brigade calls

does a fire brigade
make itself a fire brigade...

The fire brigade man
calls the fire brigade people...

And again I heard

this eerie knocking,

The security forces stood outside

knocking on the ground with sticks,
day and night.

They had very long sticks

that they always knocked on the ground.
This knocking...

had a very threatening quality

and became incorporated into the sound
of approaching steps on the stairs,

this tramping of feet,
like the sound of military boots.

Perhaps that seems a bit cryptic, but...

that was my motivation
for making that film.

It was a little too personal though,
too close to me,

to really use it
as the story for a film.

But I told the story indirectly,
using images, but not verbalised.

And that dream...
Back then I was...

Yes, I was having a crisis
at the end in Paris,

and this was something
that left me no peace.

She is inspired by nightmares,
but her dreams become films, too.

To strike out for distant lands
is something she always longed for.

A childhood encounter
fuelled her dreams of adventure.

Asia, deserts,
the solitude of the steppe,

strange places where one can experience
a different way of life and culture,

that's where she wanted to go.

But she managed much more:

She was the first European woman
to shoot a feature film in Mongolia.

Marvellous, marvellous.
Don't move. Stay like that.

Used to filming in Europe,

this was the biggest challenge
of her career.

Here she could explore both her passions:
travel and film.

From an early age I was interested

in things that were different.

As a child...

I read many books
about expeditions and exploration.

And there was one of the painters
from Lake Constance, Fritz Muhlenweg.

He was in the same circle
as Dix and Heckel,

belonged to their group of friends.

And... like my father,

who was also originally a painter.

FORMER HOME
OF FRITZ MUHLENWEG

My father noticed that I endlessly
and enthusiastically read books.

They were children's books, though.

Books about Mongolia.
And he looked over my shoulder and said:

"That's by Fritz Muhlenweg.

He's a good friend of mine."

And I could hardly believe that
someone like that actually existed,

who wrote such wonderful books.

Hello.
- Hello, please, come in.

He had been taken by Sven Hedin
on some of his expeditions,

as his painter and treasurer.

The book was called:

"On a Secret Mission
through the Gobi Desert"

Exactly, that's it!

Look, a beautiful Mongolian hat.

And you pull these down
over your ears when it's cold.

You wear them on long camel rides,

in the camel trains.

And that's the Mongolian lucky knot.

Look at how beautifully it's made,
from different silks.

How carefully crafted.

A fox, or what is it?

It was quite a big book.

And at the back were 100 or 150 words
in Mongolian.

I knew them all by heart.

Without anyone asking me to,
I learned them all.

All mispronounced, of course,
as I was later to learn.

But I read and learned it all
with great fen/our.

The dog.

Mare's milk.

The cloud.

The sun.

The moon.

The sky.

The doe.

Magnificent. You have worked hard.

Now, look at that!
- That's felt.

They certainly keep you warm.

But they were a kind of sock,

that you wore
under the soft Mongolian boots.

Look at that beautiful felt.

They make it by hand themselves.

They drag it over the stones,
for a long time,

behind the horses or the yaks,

until it turns to felt.

And then it's edged like this.

And leather goes over it?

And then the soft, leather boots over it.
It's freezing cold there,

as low as minus 40 or even minus 50.

And when you're riding
with one of these camel trains,

it can get extremely cold.

DEUTSCHE KINEMATHEK ARCHIVES,
BERLIN

Many of the costumes and props
from her films

are stored and restored
in the Kinemathek archives in Berlin.

To prepare for the big show
in the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt",

Ulrike Ottinger is examining
her treasures with her team,

and deciding which to integrate
into the new context of this exhibition.

Now, let's decide which ones to use.

Well, they could be hung up
on hooks or something.

No, no, I really don't want
a typical museum exhibition,

otherwise I would have used
the lovely things from Dahlem.

This shaman outfit here,

these here are the ancestors,
they represent the shaman's ancestors.

And you have to imagine this
as an umbilical cord to the ancestors.

This will be beautiful.

This was the great hunting hat
that Delphine Seyrig wore,

when they went out to hunt.

And this was the camouflage
to disguise themselves as animals.

You could only see the ears,

and the poor animals
don't know what's about lo befall them.

Were they made especially
or are they all originals?

No, they were all made,
but they're exact copies of originals.

Right, with the old fabrics
I collected over ten years

on all my trips to China.

Just look!

A caravan of camels.

How romantic.

How kind that they stop

so we may view this spectacle well.

Well, I was very lucky.

Mongolia was the best holiday
I ever had.

I was so happy!

I was beside myself with excitement.

It was an amazing opportunity

to shoot in a prohibited area,
where you normally cannot go.

We were alone in this huge landscape,
it was a fantastic experience.

I had so many amazing experiences there,

with the people especially.

Like the women, who sang every evening.

They stood on chairs
and sang in such high voices,

with such a lust for life!

And I was so ashamed,

because as Westerners,
we had nothing like that to offer.

I feel so insecure...

It's all so unusual.

Where shall we live?

And how are the conveniences?

We'll live in the most beautiful
summer houses called yurts.

They are so airy'.!

Yes...
I'll stay.

When you work with Ulrike,

when she's doing the camera,
which she always does,

it takes quite a long time.

Because she oversees everything:

The scenery, the background, the light.

In Mongolia, we'd often only start

very shortly...
just a few minutes before it got dark.

Because it gets dark
much more suddenly there.

She would spend the whole day
arranging everyone:

the Mongolians, the Chinese,

the French, the Spanish and the Germans.

Only then could she do her first take.

It was all quite exhausting, for her too.

One day we were out with wagons,
jeeps and on foot, at least 50 people.

We were going through a gorge,

which was perhaps five metres wide.

And on both sides,
the walls of the gorge

extended very high and very steep.

And at the end of the gorge,
there was a monastery on a hill.

And the Mongolian said:

"We have to hurry, it's going to rain,
and that could be very dangerous."

Lo and behold,

just before we reached the top,
it started to rain.

Within half an hour, the gorge
was filled to the brim with water.

We would have drowned like rats.

We would have all been killed.

There would have been no way out.

And the monks touched my breasts,
and said: "Oh, woman!"

In Mongolian.
"Woman, ooooh..."

"Long time, no see."

And they had a kind of vodka

made from grass.

And then we all danced like mad,
in this monastery.

And the next morning, it was very bright,

and I was alone: everyone was gone.

They had travelled on
without realising they'd left me behind.

Either they couldn't find me,
or they simply forgot me.

Well, she is a real role model:
be strong and accept everything.

Accept the situation, whatever it is.

Because it was really tough in Mongolia.

The first time I used one of my paintings
in a film was in "Superbia".

In "Superbia" it was like this:

lrm Hermann is standing here

explaining what Superbia is.

And I come towards her with the camera

and follow her hand over here.

And then I come through here
with the camera.

Gluttony, sloth, greed,

wrath, envy, lust.

But why not see for yourselves,
how Luciphera Superbia,

whose carriage is drawn
by the six minor sins,

arrives in a procession of triumph,

her handmaiden Blasphemia at her side,
for her marriage with the world.

FILMING OF SUPERBIA - THE PRIDE, 1986

Ulrike Ottinger has never been afraid
of filming in freezing temperatures.

Seven women directors were asked
to film the seven deadly sins.

This had already been done by men
twice in the history of film.

But the female perspective was new.

Sorry, we have to do it again.

You stopped, you can't do that.

The procession has to keep moving.

Ulrike chose to do "Pride".

Again, she depicted displays of power,
posing and processions.

Religious ceremonies, ritual processions,
the Alemannic carnival tradition,

and the theatre of politics
were all grotesquely portrayed.

I painted three pigs,
as though they were jumping,

not typical, fat butcher's pigs,
but elegant ones.

Almost like wild boars,
which can also run and jump.

There's a church
on Reichenau Island:

You can see it in the background.

St. Georg's Church.

It's a very early Romanesque church.

SAINT GEORG
ISLE OF REICHENAU

It has absolutely gorgeous frescoes.

Very old, from around 1,000 AD.

It's really magnificent.

The frescoes depict Christ's miracles.

I saw them and thought: of course!

There is one image
of three demons riding on pigs,

who are jumping into the water in panic.

These were the pigs
that I had always drawn.

I drew them exactly that way,
from memory.

Without being aware

that I was drawing these frescoes.

But here was something new:

in this short,
she combines her opulent theatricality

with documentary material.

Footage of parades from across the globe
is combined with her scenes.

And strange figures
from her own region march by.

Hello, hello, hello, hello,
and yes, indeed, hello

In Germany pigs are lucky.

Well I got lucky, because I was given
one of the pigs from her film "Superbia".

I had worked on the film
and loved that prop,

because it reminded me of my home.

It also reminded me
of the seven deadly sins,

which one should always avoid.

Maybe that's why
I banished it to the shed.

But it did actually bring me luck,

because the inspiration Ulrike Oitinger
has given me since my youth

guided me for many years.

The pig is a constant reminder of that.

The Delphi - that became my oracle:

The premieres of Ulrike Ottinger's films
at the Berlinale were magical for me.

I saw "Freak Orlando" there in 1981

and was enchanted by the
mythical and surreal imagery.

Then in 1984:

Four hours of "China: The Arts,
the People - a Long Journey",

We squeezed into that foyer
like sardines,

waiting to witness the travelogues
as if they were from another universe,

a mythical world of images.

The magic moment...

Once again, an oracle
a fairy tale, a riddle unfolds.

My gorilla...

lives happily and larges it...

No wonder she's so fascinated
by machines like those in the Prater.

They engender fear and pleasure.

Again the staged meets the real:

She references fictional figures
like Barbarella and King Kong,

and weaves together
the found and the invented.

So, the idea is that she's looking up.

What if we lie you down...

ELFRIEDE JELINEK
NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

...with a cushion?
- Yes, but on what?

Yes, it's easy for you to say.

It'll have me in hospital yet.

Stiff as a board.

This is as good as it gets.

Shall I start?

When I thought I would lose control,
screaming with pleasure,

on my favourite carousel
with the cups,

or on another ride
amidst the wonders of the Prater,

which seemed lo have escaped
all forms of control,

when it seemed I would cut loose,
go wild beyond their lines of control,

like a crazy billiard ball,

I had to be pulled back,

as if on a string.

I think she has
a precise eye for detail...

FORMER FORUM
DIRECTOR/BERLINALE

...even in a surreal or stylised context,

individual details are always in focus
and become visual signals.

One can also identify
documentary techniques.

For example, in "Dorian Gray
in the Mirror of the Yellow Press"

there's a famous scene on the beach.

It's really an opera scene,
she wants us to understand it that way.

In this opera scene,
people are performing on a beach,

with the sea in the background.

The whole thing is framed
by a kind of theatre set,

but the sea is the real sea,

with real waves rolling in and breaking.

It's an interesting combination
of documentary elements

and fictional, stylised elements.

DORIAN GRAY IN THE MIRROR OF
THE YELLOW PRESS,1984

Unadulterated reality is first let in,

but becomes a theatrical element,
part of the performance.

And you can see that
these elements do go together.

You could say that they are spaces,
which she frames and opens up.

Geographical spaces,
but also spaces like on a stage.

And there are also temporal spaces,
historical spaces.

You can see that in her films,
which very often or nearly always

have a social dimension,
a critical dimension.

For example in "Exile Shanghai".
Those are such wonderful scenes.

Her documentaries are wonderful,
even] one of them.

But they are also very stylised.

She works with the real material
that she finds,

but then incorporates that
into a discourse,

which reflects her personality
and is a kind of staging.

Even the camera framing
is a specific selection of reality.

And even the big documentaries contain

some theatrically staged scenes.

They're wonderful, very subtle,

they have wonderful colours,
beautifully composed.

You almost want to rip individual
images from the screen,

or hang up large stills of them at home.

So it's a kind of melting pot of reality,
in inverted commas, and the staged.

Only Ulrike Ottinger can pull this off.
That's her style, and it's wonderful.

THE KOREAN WEDDING CHEST, 2009

Her documentaries
are also always theatrical.

They are defined by her love of detail

and her knowledge
of each different culture.

CURATOR OF "FLOATING FOOD"

PSYCHOANALYST, FILM CRITIC

Each film is a trip

to an unknown, colourful world.

Another first is her film "Under Snow"
premiering as part of the exhibition.

Yeah, red cast is often a problem.

The catalogue is being planned:

It's an artist's book
with quotes from her films,

illustrated with pictures
of her seafaring history.

You think it'll look better printed
because it won't be so soft.

The images will be a bit sharper.

I think I prefer the structure
of this one actually.

Another testimony
to her own unique cosmos.

Now it's a little...

Here are the sailors.

Roschen, as he was still young
and attractive and fresh.

We could do something like this.

I think that's great.
We'll put it above the samurai outfit.

Well, you're the artist.
- Yes, we'll do it like that.

Have we got another?

Ulrike Ollinger
will always be a nomad,

which is why she sympaihises
with those great travellers, birds.

They are an important element
in her exhibition.

They connect continents and cultures.

In one of the studios,
feathers are being prepared.

As children,
we waited for the swans to moult,

then brought the white trophies home
from the lakeshore.

Did the feathers arrive?
- Yes.

How long do you need
for a square metre?

About an hour or more,
but it's hard to estimate.

A bag like this one
takes around three hours.

Well, I was quite inspired by...

Teotihuacan,

the city of pyramids, near Mexico City.

And this is for the central column.

All the columns will be in water.

A huge water basin
will be built around them.

Here, I drew various
different maritime routes.

It's a strong image though.

In principle, it stands for
what today we call globalisation.

Globalisation is something

that has actually been taking place
for a very long time already.

ARTWORK IN PROGRESS

HOUSE OF THE CULTURES OF THE WORLD,
BERLIN

Ulrike Ottinger
has been working for two years

on her exhibition, Floating Food.

She has arranged all of her films
and objects according to this theme

and transformed the space
in the "Haus der Kulturen der Welt".

Finally, the show is being set up.

No, I don't like that.

Water dominates here too:

the conquest of maritime routes,
different food cultures,

the conventions of hospitality,

and the longing for the foreign -
all are explored here.

Once again, history meets present.

DORIAN GRAY IN THE MIRROR OF
THE YELLOW PRESS,1984

The theme of food occurred to me

because my mother and I
travelled a lot after the war.

On a trip to Amsterdam,

some business colleague
invited us to an Indonesian restaurant.

It was in a park,
in a little temple on an island.

What was really special was

that the food was brought
and served from little boats.

As a child, just after the war,

this seemed like paradise,
like a story from "1001 Nights";

everything that one could imagine.

I always remembered that.

For me, floating food meant...

Well of course, in the beginning
it was just a silly idea,

but then over time
I actually did a lot of research

and became more interested.

And then...
Well, your brain starts to do the work,

lots of different things,
and your imagination

and everything
that you have experienced,

comes together.

The seven stars... rule... the twelve.

That means the twelve cockerels.

Well, Ms. Ottinger,
I expected you to change the space...

DIRECTOR OF THE HOUSE OF THE CULTURES
OF THE WORLD

but not so completely...

Well, the architecture here is great.

It's really so magnificently designed.

I love spaces, and I always consider
how I can use them best.

I also always do that in my films.

I go to a place
and turn it into a film set.

Yes, and this process changes the space,

changes it utterly.

For example, here the reflection
of the water on the ceiling,

or the sound of the water.

The installation
appeals lo all the senses.

Yes.
- On the one hand you have real materials,

like the water or the grass.

On the other, everything
becomes a symbol, a sign.

So, it's a total transformation
of nature into an image.

One of the main themes
of the show is cultural encounters.

Cultural exchange

plays an important role there.
You give, but you also get.

I actually think that most people
still have a deep sense

of needing to give things back

and not just take them.

There are objects,
but of course also films

which show that kind of offering.

And show people making sacrifices,

and how seriously they take this.

Yes, how can you bring an object to life?

I think that's connected to the fact

that we bring objects to life
through our memories

and through the things
that we associate with them.

A second exhibition is also being set-up:

50 years ago, Ulrike painted pop art.

She's now exhibiting these works.

You know I lived in Paris.

These are screen prints.
I used to print them all myself.

In Friedlaender's studio
and at Desjobert's lithograph studio.

I was able lo do all this by hand,

silk-screen printing or lithographs.

I really enjoyed it.

In Paris, I only ever had tiny
chambres de bonne,

in which you could hardly turn around.

And then I started to make
large-format paintings,

combining them like mosaic.

Then I used the courtyard.

There was an old goods lift,
like a cage - so you could look out.

And when the concierge
saw that I was laying out my pictures,

to see how they looked together,
she always said: "I'll come with you!"

and came up in the lift with me.

And then we always
looked at the pictures together,

from six or eight metres height.

Her comments were always helpful.
Yes, that was great.

That was my last acrylic.

In French slang

you can say, that your bowl is full.

That was probably my last painting.

They were all elements
that came together

to tell a story,
a form of narrative painting.

Ulrike loves taking her friends
on a journey through her world.

Ingvild Goetz, of the famous
Goetz collection in Munich,

comes to see "Floating Food".

You had a gallery in Zurich...

GOETZ COLLECTION, MUNICH

ART HISTRORIAN

in the early '70s,
- In the late '60s, yes.

Did you already
know Ulrike then?

Because she came back from Paris in '69.

Yes, I met Ulrike in '69.

Just after Paris,
in '69 or '70, in Constance.

I lived there and so did she.

Ulrike had a small bar,
an artists' hang-out.

People from Zurich came there too.

It was a real institution in Constance.

She also used to have exhibitions

and that was how I entered the art world.

Ulrike was a real character.
She really belonged to that bar,

standing around with a cigar,
taking orders and watching it all.

But she also just let things happen,

let the people encounter one other.

Pop art was little known in Germany.

But she brought over
interesting artists early on.

It was a great atmosphere,
it brought people together

because it was an artists meeting place,

and because you'd see art there
we'd never heard of in Germany.

I was an artist,
but at her exhibitions, I got the idea.

I wasn't really that talented,

so I decided to start doing exhibitions
and publishing graphic art.

I'd seen a whole series of graphic art
at Ulrike's exhibitions.

And it was there that I bought
my very first piece.

I had another connection with Ulrike:

Matthew Barney.
He must have seen her films.

I'm quite sure of that...

There's such a similarity, and
he works with such similar figures, or...

he works with such similar...
not contents, but concepts.

So I said: "That's just Ulrike."

"You can't show Matthew Barney
without reference to Ulrike!"

And then I said to Ulrike: "You have
to get these films onto the art market."

Looking back anyway,
you can definitely see the link.

I always found it interesting

to show the two together.
- Yes.

Ulrike's work has a sense of humour,

but beneath that
there's also something latent.

Something strange or shocking.

Ulrike is very interested in the foreign,
and you are too.

You have travelled a lot.

Yes, I think
that's a very interesting point.

There are very few women who would travel
to certain regions by themselves,

where you don't know what to expect.

Ulrike does that.
I find that fascinating.

The time has come:

The grand exhibition is opened
as part of Asia-Pacific Weeks.

Everything that Ulrike Ottinger
knows and loves under one roof:

Asia, water, colours, fabric, food,

rituals, tradition and modernity.

Red and blue. The colour choreography
is her conception.

On the red altar, the Mongolian hats.

The mythical boat from El Hierro.
Objects with memories.

Gifts from across the globe.

The shirt made of bank notes.
The dollar samurai.

The transport,
manufacture and sewing of food

as an expression of cultural rituals.

Here you can see a river journey,

but very improvised,

with a self-built raft.

You can see
the people's feet are in the water.

But then we found a rowing boat
from somewhere,

and we, with the entire camera crew,

rolled down the river with the current.

What's fascinating here is that
the boat becomes part of the film.

Yes,
and that opens up a dialogue with time.

And it becomes part of the journey.

Of course, it represents the journey too.

The film is also
a journey of the imagination,

even though it's a documentary.

Yes, that's true,
but society often wrongly thinks

that lots of things
are meant to be realistic

when they're not realistic at all.

A linear narrative
is about as unrealistic as you can get.

Meandering narratives
are much closer to real life.

It is said
that a person who gives is happy.

Receiving brings joy,
which in turn brings joy to the giver.

If you miss something, you're done for.

I've been waiting for you
all these years.

You alone are the chosen one

who will take my place.

So many of your great actors are gone

It's awful,

and at the same time it's so touching
to see them live on.

That's what I always say:
film is an animistic medium.

It sits there, a roll of film,

and suddenly it comes to life again,
on the screen.

Isn't that wonderful?

But Dorian,
I've made special plans for you.

Exquisitely vulgar.

Isn't that exactly what you desire?
So, come then!

I'm sure
we can entertain ourselves until then.

Untertitel
SUB:WERK Stuttgart