Some things can be seen more clearly at night.. . A film poem about a continent at night, a culture on which the sun’s going down, though it’s hyper alert at the same time, an “Abendland” that, often somewhat self-obsessively, sees itself as the crown of human civilization, while its service economy is undergoing rapid growth in a thoroughly pragmatic way. Nikolaus Geyrhalter takes a look at a paradise with a quite diverse understanding of protection. Night work juxtaposed with oblivious evening digression, birth and death, questions that await answers in the semi-darkness, a Babel of languages, the routine of the daily news, and political negotiation: All this has been captured in images with a wealth of details that make us look at things in a new way. The longer you consider a word, the more distant is its return gaze: ABENDLAND.
Cinematography
Nightscapes that make surveillance look almost beautiful.
Editing
Babel of scenes speaking past each other perfectly.
Director
Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Geyrhalter's 'Abendland' deliberately echoes Oswald Spengler's 1918 'The Decline of the West'—same German title—updating civilizational anxiety for the security camera age.
Shot across ten countries with no narration, the film treats EU border politics and neon-lit call centers as equally revealing of 'European values'—a formal choice that lands differently post-2015 refugee crisis.
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