Othon. Die Augen wollen sich nicht zu jeder Zeit schließen oder Vielleicht wird Rom sich eines Tages erlauben seinerseits zu wählen

Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times or Perhaps One Day Rome Will Permit Herself to Choose in Her Turn (Othon)

Based on a play by Pierre Corneille, Straub & Huillet’s film is about Othon, who must forsake his bride and marry the niece of the current ruler in order to become emperor. The story is narrated by way of largely static arrangements of one, two or three people before scenes of present-day Rome, complete with traffic noise. Eschewing conventional intonation, the dialogues become a torrent which sweeps details away, even as the theme of the individual and society still remains apparent at its core. "Othon. Die Augen wollen sich nicht zu jeder Zeit schließen oder Vielleicht wird Rom sich eines Tages erlauben seinerseits zu wählen" ("Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times or Perhaps One Day Rome Will Permit Herself to Choose in Her Turn (Othon)") is a film of discrepancies which are negotiated between screen and audience in aesthetic terms: between seeing and understanding, between past and present, theatre and cinema, politics and feelings.

Source: 70. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)