Nikolaus Geyrhalter's CERN finally gets an American release -- from Icarus on DVD

Made back in 2013, prior to Nikolaus Geyrhalter's later and better documentary, Homo Sapiens, but only now getting a release (on DVD) here in the USA, his eponymously-titled film about that famous research center in Switzerland where they are trying to understand and/or maybe re-create the Big Bang, CERN is interesting enough but it also seems lacking when compared to the terrific documen-tary, also made in and about that research center, entitled Particle Fever.

Herr Geyrhalter, pictured at left, has made a number of first-rate films I would not under any circumstance have wanted to miss, and while I am glad to have seen CERN, I would call it one of his lesser works in that it does not possess the depth, surprise or subtlety of his others. It is what it is -- a 75-minute exploration of the research center and some of the very smart scientists who labor there --  and that's perfectly OK. Perhaps because this documen-tary (according to the IMDB at least) was made for television, it seems an unusually simplistic example of Geyrhalter's oeuvre.

The filmmaker inter-cuts between scenes of physicists, engineers and researchers (as above) explaining to us non-scientists what they do and shots of what we might call the grunt workers (as below) doing the physical labor at CERN, who for whatever reason don't get the chance to speak with us. The higher-level speakers do the best they can explaining to folk like us who haven't much of a clue to this kind of science or research. (One fellow here almost continually chuckles and laughs as he talks, probably because trying to give us a elementary-school level understanding of his job is so ridiculous).

The film is full of Geyrhalter's usual gorgeous cinematography which is always a pleasure to view, and although the speakers here seem to come from all over the globe -- Italy, Germany, Africa, France, the USA and more -- English (being the one clear international language) is constantly spoken, albeit as the first speaker we hear tells us, it is very broken English because everyone speaks it with a different accent. English subtitles would have helped the film tremendously, given that, by the time you have managed to decipher a new and different accent, you've also missed half of what was being said.

Still, and aside from what you might be able to learn about what's going on at CERN, there is also some fun to be had hearing the little bits of gossip you'll pick up. There are lots of divorces here, one woman explains, probably because of how dedicated these scientists are to their work above all else.

After spending much of the film underground we at last see the natural light of day for a bit before returning below. CERN, it turns out, is like a small city with literally thousand of "citizens" to be governed. The place has its own fire department and police force, too. You'll learn this and a lot more, and even if you can't quite perhaps understand all of what you're being told, you'll come away from this relatively short documentary feeling, I suspect, that CERN is probably the absolutely smartest spot on earth.

The film concludes with one of Geryhalter's marvelous tracking shots in which we glide down a corridor for what seems like forever until... yes, the film simply ends. From Icarus Films, running 78 minutes, in broken English and featuring about one dozen interviews, CERN is available now on DVD for purchase and (I hope) rental.

Beauty in desolation: Nikolaus Geyrhalter's exquisite photographic study, HOMO SAPIENS

Our species appears nowhere in Nikolaus Geyrhalter's brilliant and breathtakingly beautiful, if ironically titled documentary, HOMO SAPIENS, yet our mark is all over the place. In this, the latest film from Herr Geyrhalter, who has already given us a couple of whoppingly good docs -- Our Daily Bread and Abenland -- the Austrian filmmaker who conceived, directed and shot this stunning piece of work (with the prodigious help of Simon Graf in scouting the amazing locations used here) has compiled a series of what could almost be -- were it not for the occasional wind, waves and birds -- still-life photography of empty, desolate but stunning exteriors, interiors and sometimes a combo of the two in which nature seems to be re-enforcing her domain on ours.

The filmmaker, pictured at right, lets his camera remain stationary as it gazes at scene after scene, location after location, for anywhere from 15 to 30-or-more seconds. This gives the viewer ample time to take it all in. And how very much there is to take. Geyrhalter is an artist. His compositions are wonderful: rich and detailed, forcing us to observe closely, think about what we're seeing, then make all kinds of connections.

We go from a gorgeous, decrepit amphitheatre to a deserted (for quite some length of time, it seems) railway station and shopping mall (in Japan, perhaps? The writing we see would indicate somewhere Asian) to an auditorium or two, hospitals, even a roller coaster seemingly positioned in the sea. The locations are bizarre and amazing, and the cinematography is, too. Yet it is not simply beautiful (that might very well be enough), it is also about as artful and thoughtful as photography can get.

There is no dialog here, no sound save the ambient ones: wind, gulls cawing, pigeons cooing, Music? You know, I cannot now remember. The movie was that hypnotic. But yet I never felt sleepy in the least. I would imagine that photography buffs will make a bee line for the documentary, which opens this week in New York City at Anthology Film Archives.

Although there is great beauty here (and Geyrhalter seems incapable of not zeroing in on it with simplicity, always capturing the right composition, angle and even color (or lack of it). He finds his beauty in desolation, and this is the way in which he gets us to considering what homo sapiens have to do with all this. How did the hospital room (above) come into such disrepair, for example? Was that empty shopping mall too near Fukushima? (One of these malls may be closer to the USA, as it bears the name Woodville.)

A house of religion is just as likely to have emptied out as has the mall. Or a prison. Or an office, below, full of aged computers. For me the most beautiful shots of all seems to have been taken in an empty planetarium. Even a greenhouse has gone to seed. The movie offers its own special pacing and an odd kind of momentum. There's dark humor, too: in the loudspeakers atop poles wrapped in vines (or in the winter, snow). Interestingly, the shots taken in the desert seem not as memorable as the others (the desert is already desolate, right?). Ditto the wintertime scenes, where snow can more easily mask the desolation.

And then we've come full circle, back to that original amphitheater. What a journey! Perhaps I missed them, but I tried to check the credits for a listing of locations where the movie was filmed. I am pretty sure Japan, Germany (or Austria) and the USA are among them -- and maybe other countries, too. Whatever, Herr Geyrhalter has graced us with one wonderful documentary that photo buffs will eventually want to own on disc. Unless some enterprising publisher thinks to put out the coffee-table book version.

From KimStim and running 94 minutes (TrustMovies could have watched another hour of it, at least), Homo Sapiens opens this Friday, July 29, at Anthology Film Archives in New York City for a week's run. Elsewhere? There's is nothing as yet on the KimStim site to indicate further showings. But I would hope an eventual DVD or Blu-ray is in the offing.

The dark & sterile night of current Europe: Nikolaus Geyrhalter's hypnotic ABENDLAND

First released theatrically in March of 2011 (in its home country of Austria) but filmed across Europe between October 2008 and November 2010, ABENDLAND, the latest documentary from Nikolaus Geyrhalter, holds a camera up to the then present-day Europe, filmed only at night and in beautifully compo-sed shots, to reveal a continent trying to hold on to its humanity, some-times in very odd ways.  Since then, things have only grown worse.

Herr Geyrhalter, shown at left, who earlier gave us Our Daily Bread, is back again in a similar style: all visual, no narration, with occa-sional unrehearsed conversations recor-ded but barely heard. This makes us pay far greater attention than we would need to, were everything doled out to us on a platter and made easily digestible. Instead we piece together what's going on and why, and how this all fits into Geyrhalter's vision (the filmmaker both directed and handled the cinematography), which in time becomes our own vision. Not that Nikolaus forces his viewpoint upon us, but as the movie proceeds we cannot help but see and understand things as does this unusually gifted and thoughtful cinematician.

The film also credits one, Wolfgang Widerhofer for the film's editing and "dramatic structure." Widerhofer also edited Our Daily Bread and the recent pedophile picture Michael; he clearly knows his way around editing and structure.  One of the first see things we see here are security cameras, lurking and looking, then we're off to a gypsy encampment in Italy (the exact country we  are in is never stated; we have to listen to the occasional speech -- not always available -- to pick up the language of the place), which is about to be destroyed and its people moved elsewhere. We see the camp pre- and post-destruction.

Now we're in a pristine hospital, watching a woman and her newborn -- perhaps premature, for we we next see a nurse tending to a tiny incubated infant. And then we're at a meeting of a sub-commission of the European Parliament (below), listening (or reading subtitles) as the chairman explains that Bosnia and Herzegovina are still not satisfied with their situation. (Well, who of us is, but still...) In this scene a number of languages come together. We're then whisked off to a chicken cooking facility (shades of Our Daily Bread) and an enormous sort of Beer Garden (above) where huge crowds have gathered to eat, drink and party. This sort of thing resembles hell on earth to me, but the party-goers appear to be having fun.

Then it's back to security cameras, this time outside a Barclay's Bank in London (the name of which should resonate now, as the current LIBOR scandal unravels, much more than when the film was shot: Those cameras tell us the date was July 28, 2009). After which, we're with a group of men working the late shift in an aircraft factory. Here, the colors and composition are gorgeous (the composition often is throughout the film, but the colors are unusually bright). And who is that? Looks like some high-level religious figure -- ooops, it's the Pope! -- who is being celebrated and asked by the crowd an important question. His "answer" is bullshit, because it does not actually answer the question; the Lord's Prayer is intoned; and then, as all is clearly A-OK, security takes His Holiness away.

We next get a newscast from Britain: The usual: from terrible deaths in Pakistan to the Burberry raincoat company, trying to make a couture comeback. Both stories are given equal weight, of course. This is the news.  We watch, as postal workers sort mail using the spoken word to differentiate -- this is fun and odd -- and then we follow a fellow at work at his home computer. We're made privy to a suicide hotline (or maybe it's simply some very good telephone therapy); the police come to find a man's brother, who is evidently "wanted"; we visit a porno site with a man and woman first fucking, then chatting and showering (Are they a couple? Perhaps, and if so, this is an interesting, calorie-burning way to earn one's living.)

Cut to some hospital maintenance, washing a patent, changing his or her sleeping position, and tending to the general needs. Now it's police vs demonstrators against... what? Toxic waste, perhaps. Immigration raises its head in a meeting between a needy illegal and a kindly but distant volunteer. The airport is shown during midnight maintenance, as scrubbing continues on everything from mirrors to toilets. Oh-oh: it's a crematorium, super-clean and spacious (shown in photo at bottom), as one body after another is reduced to ash and bone.  Immigration again, as authorities check the sea wall (below) for any breech. Finally, a rock concert and a sea of bodies (mostly young) and lights.

The above description may sound awfully dry, and yet this movie is anything but. It's dark twice over: the entire film takes place in nighttime after all, but it also leaves you with a feeling of a Europe problemed in ways that do not make for easy solutions. What is the filmmaker saying?  Nothing terribly simple nor obvious, I suspect. Repeated screenings might give up more meaning, but on a first viewing, the film is nearly hypnotic. It's hard to pull yourself away from it. Geyrhalter and Widerhofer are artists first, propagandists second (if at all). And they are very humane. Even at the rather large distance they keep you -- by virtue of no narration, little verbiage from any of the people you see, and no sense of taking sides with or against anyone -- you'll still come away from this movie with both a sense of sadness and of hope for humanity.

Abenland, which translates officially as Occident or western world, opens today, July 27, in New York City at Anthology Film Archives for a one-week run. Screening are Saturday and Sunday at 5, 7, and 9pm; Monday through Friday at 7 and 9pm. I hope some company will see to it that a DVD is released eventually, maybe even a Blu-ray, as this is a film you may want to see more than once. Click here for directions to AFA.