Alexander Kluge

A film by Peter Buchka

Alexander Kluge is one of the few truely universal talents in Germany: lawyer, writer, filmmaker, philosopher, art critic, media politician – in short, a man who goes through the world with his eyes wide open, refusing to accept the perspective of a single standpoint.

Artistically, Kluge prefers to be seen as a chronicler and interpreter. In this film essay he calls himself an "honest literary bookkeeper" who repeatedly studies German history to see if the unfortunate developments in this country necessarily had to have happened as they did.

This would appear to be a clear and distinct programme. However, at the same time Alexander Kluge’s books and particularly his films are held to be difficult because they do not adopt traditional narrative methods.

From "Yesterday Girl" via "Occasional Work of a Domestic Slave" to "Female Patriot" and "Power of Destiny" (to name his most wellknown films) Kluge has used his own technique of editing. This has become an unmistakeable trademark of his films and yet makes them obstinate to interpretation. He has measured reality against desire and tested human energy in the face of and within history.

The film essay by Peter Buchka attempts to display these structures by concentrating on the decisive elements in the apparent confusion of Kluge’s masterly dialectical way of thinking.

Author and Director	Peter Buchka
Director of Photography	Jürgen Knoll
Sound Mixer	Uwe Schumann
Editor	Matthias Bauer
Co-Producer	Oliver Boeck
Producer	Jörg Bundschuh