Heinrich und Mary-Jane

A man and a woman are sitting on a couch. They once were a couple. Whether they still are or aren't anymore isn’t quite clear. Neither to the viewer, nor to them: “Sometimes I hate you for all the things you’ve done to me,” she says. “You know, I love you,” he says. “That’s the thing.”

Stefan Zlamal’s 'Heinrich und Mary-Jane' is a somewhat unusual kind of found-footage film. Instead of rearranging previously shot material, Zlamal worked with two “found” soundtracks, allowing them to collide within the space inhabited by the two: The young woman (Astrid Rausch) whispers, sighs and yells in the voice used to dub Liv Ullmann in the German version of Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage.” Her visitor (Wolfgang Dangl) replies with passages from a reading given by Berlin writer Sven Regener.

The form of what is being portrayed contains more information than its content, and so “Heinrich und Mary-Jane” is also about perception in cinema: For both the quarreling couple and us as viewers, the “synchronicity,” literally “togetherness in time,” is revealed to be the grand illusion that it is.

(Quelle: Maya McKechneay, Translation: Steve Wilder)

Heinrich und Mary-Jane, at, 2005, 12:00