Gespräch im Gebirg

Conversation in the Mountains

A cinematic essay based on writer and poet Paul Celan′s 1959 prose work "Conversation In The Mountains", and which also addresses the difficult relationship between words and images. In July 1959, the Jewish writer Paul Celan travelled with his wife and child to Sils-Maria on vacation.

Celan wanted to meet the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno in Engadin. Adorno′s famous comment, to write poetry after Ausschwitz is barbaric, had caused a controversy that still reverberates today. But Adorno didn′t show up and the meeting never took place. Celan broke off his holiday and returned to Paris where he wrote the impressive piece of poetic prose, "Conversation In The Mountains". In it he describes the meeting between two Jews at night in the mountains. Mattias Caduff′s film searches for a personal inroad into this difficult piece of literature by observing himself as a reader.

Source: German films Service & Marketing GmbH