Showing @ Cineworld, Edinburgh, Sun 22 Jun
Karim Aïnouz, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Wim Wenders, Margreth Olin / Germany / 2014/ 165mins
Cathedrals of Culture was designed as a series of individually directed documentaries for German television. Film festival audiences have the advantage of seeing them in 3D but, what may be considered the drawback, of seeing all six films in one long sitting. As a whole, the visual richness, the contrast of styles and the depth of commentary make for a rather overwhelming experience.
Viewers explore six iconic buildings from concert halls to research facilities but this is no behind-the-scenes tour. Instead, six different directors have given voice – in some cases literally – to the buildings themselves, these receptacles of human culture and collective memory. The films are as unique as the buildings themselves. Robert Redford combines archive footage of the Salk Institute‘s architect, Louis Kahn, with genuinely affectionate testimonials from the scientists who use the building each day. The ghost of Hans Scharoun drifts through his creation in Wim Wenders’s dreamy Berlin Philharmonic. Halden Prison explains a little about her customs and wonders if the villages beyond her walls are the same.
The combination of 3D technology and spectacular architecture appears promising, but it is really only with the final two films of the more visually-oriented venues Oslo Opera House and Centre Pompidou, that the effect feels like more than a gimmick in an already substantial collection of documentaries.
Showing as part of Edinburgh Intenational Film Festival 2014