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. Les Yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer ou Peut-être qu’un jour Rome se permettra de choisir à son tour (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. (Berlinale)