Meteorite Theory

Last week, this film was marvelled at at Diagonale as if it were some kind of extraterrestrial find, an inexplicably shaped object that had fallen to Earth and held an otherworldly fascination. In fact, ‘From a Nearby Country’, the latest production by video concept artist Manfred Neuwirth, does look meteoritic, so alien in any case that it can hardly be categorised as a documentary or essay film; the closest one might be tempted to draw a comparison with James Benning's docu-avant-garde space and time studies, but even that only comes a few steps closer to Neuwirth's art. She focuses on the everyday life of a Kritzendorf wine-growing family, caught between work, leisure, worship and contemplation of nature, showing impressions of village festivals, the grape harvest, working with the vines, but also more meditative observations of a stack of wood, a cornfield, a wintery path. The austere form of this perceptual experiment is part of its sometimes enigmatic effect: ‘Aus einem nahen Land’ is constructed from 24 complexly composed, carefully separated tracking shots, each set in gentle slow motion for three minutes; the original sounds are augmented here and there by Christian Fennesz' subtle sonic interventions. Neuwirth explains nothing, she shows, lets us hear and asks questions, such as the one about the off, the sounding space beyond the camera. On rails, the camera traverses, opens and mobilises the images, always first to the left, then in the opposite direction, back to the start. The temporal expansion of the panoramas shot from multiple perspectives accentuates the mythical and uncanny aspects of some rural religious rituals, while the viewer can study the colour tricks and the veiling and unveiling of natural light: in the end, all of Neuwirth's manoeuvres lead to a sharpening of the senses, of perception of the world.

Stefan Grissemann, profil

Odyssey in Weinbauernland

Manfred Neuwirth's documentary film forms a contemplative mosaic of images from rural Kritzendorf, in which the familiar suddenly appears strange.

Kritzendorf is a popular summer destination for Viennese, when the Strombad on the Danube becomes a popular excursion destination and al fresco romp for Bobos and fully tanned pensioners. However, there is no sign of them in Manfred Neuwirth's documentary Aus einem nahen Land (From a Nearby Country), which takes a look around this very community. Instead, we see sheep, wine-growers, open-air masses or just stacked logs. In this work, which is strongly oriented towards the audiovisual, the near – as already suggested by the title – is shown as if it had been filmed in the distance.

Temptation of the Eye

Of course, this is precisely where the film's irony lies. Neuwirth, an avid traveller, has covered many more exotic places. In Aus einem nahen Land (From a Nearby Country), which just won him a camera and sound design award at the Diagonale festival, he demonstrates how perspective can guide and tempt the eye. The very first shot, showing sheep seeking shelter in the shade of a tree, could easily have been filmed in a neighbouring country to the south.

Neuwirth merely follows a loose chronology in terms of content. His neighbour, a family of winegrowers who also run a wine tavern, provides the film with a central focus. The men can be seen several times working in the vineyards, and later bottling the wine, but the activity is interesting primarily because it is also part of this culture and landscape.

In each of the 24 three-minute shots, the camera makes the same horizontal movement - almost at ground level to the left and back again. This gives the impression that the section is being measured as if by a scan. It lends the image a variable depth of field that opens up the space like a fan. Neuwirth's selection is sometimes focused on objects; a trailer full of hay bales being unloaded from a tractor or a suckling pig with a swinging leg being mechanically grilled.

Then again, it is the sound of a helicopter that suddenly cuts through a hiking trail. Or a view of the treetops, like something out of a film by Terrence Malick – one of the images that is accompanied by music by Christian Fennesz. A nearby country also evokes rich associations because the general and the particular stand side by side. A piece of science fiction from the Vienna area.

Dominik Kamalzadeh, Der Standard

Documentary essay, made in Kritzendorf

‘An exercise in seeing, hearing and concentrating’ is how Manfred Neuwirth described his last film scapes and elements, which consisted of five long shots. The same applies to his new work, although it is a lot more “accessible”: it consists of 24 shots of three minutes each, all carefully separated by black fade-outs. Four of these sequences are accompanied by sparingly accentuating music by Christian Fennesz.

Manfred Neuwirth, the great documentarist and essayist, is known, among other things, for sometimes gazing into the distance (as in his Tibet films) and sometimes filming where it is very close (see title) and familiar to him. From a nearby country is dedicated to the Vitovec family of winegrowers, who live not far from Neuwirth's house in Kritzendorf on the Danube.

We see the family mainly at work – hammering stakes into the ground for their vineyard, harvesting, bottling wine, and decorating the harvest crown. These images are complemented by quiet observations of nature, but also by almost surreal-seeming interludes, such as the ‘arrival of a train at Kritzendorf station’, to paraphrase the Lumière brothers, a field mass at the edge of the forest, or two suckling pigs turning on a spit. A woodpile is just as interesting as a wheat field swaying in the wind or a ship passing through the image in the background on the Danube.

It wouldn't be Manfred Neuwirth if he hadn't included a little confusion: what is most striking is that the images, which were shot at 60 frames per second, are projected at 24 fps, while the sound remains synchronised. This lends the whole a unique dimension of time: sometimes it borders on slapstick, at other times it emphasises the arduous work of the wine-growing family. And when a train can be heard at the station but not seen, you begin to doubt your own perception. These alienations create suspense where there is supposedly none, and this also describes the essence of this cinematic essay: How to turn the seemingly familiar into an exciting visual adventure is something Manfred Neuwirth once again demonstrates with virtuosity.

Andreas Ungerböck, ray

The Rhythm of Insecurity

Manfred Neuwirth's ‘From a Nearby Country’ is, at first glance, one of the many formalist essay or documentary films that one encounters in contemporary Austrian film. But after spending time in the filmmaker's asynchronous and deformed worlds, one is forced to admit that it is simply in a league of its own. In 24 shots, separated by black fades, the film explores a vineyard in Kritzendorf, a small community on the Danube.

In doing so, Neuwirth creates a formally hermetic space that is nevertheless full of life. In each shot, the camera moves in slow motion to the left and back again, looking at completely different aspects of life around the wine. We get to know the Heuriger, the grape harvest, the farm and a woodpile. At the same time, we perceive a complex sound and music background. Although it always seems to be related to the respective image, it is not synchronised with the image, not least because of the slow motion. The interplay of movement, deceleration and sound creates a maelstrom that makes the familiar seem remote. Although the film is actually an exploration of Neuwirth's homeland (he comes from the neighbouring village), we are never quite sure whether we are seeing reality or fiction, a familiar or a foreign place.

Thus, ‘Aus einem nahen Land’ is above all a question of our perception. Do we see an alienation or a subjective perception? The film presents a new spatial and temporal perspective on familiar terrain, becoming a visual poem of uncertainty that, despite the unease, always feels like a romantic daydream in the shade of some trees. For Neuwirth, a view of places is not composed of narratives or images alone, but of discoveries in images, sounds, people, spaces and time. Since these things do not necessarily fit into a causal overall structure, one experiences this film in a great freedom, which replaces the missing causality with a geographical sensuality. What Neuwirth ultimately manages to do is capture the rhythm of the place on film.

The film is framed by sheep, which can be seen in the first and last shot. This framing is possibly the only weakness of the film, because it creates a completely unnecessary context that ultimately has nothing to do with the observations and only suggests absurd interpretations. Ultimately, however, these two shots speak for themselves, because the threat posed by the animals and their sounds (one is reminded of the beginning of Satanstango by Béla Tarr) breaks with their cuteness, breaks with their casualness, breaks with their disappearance into the distance into infinity, where we can sit back and watch.

Alongside all these perceptual games and the undoubtedly subjective impressions and puzzles, the film is also a documentary about a territory and a job. It is almost impossible to describe how the chosen form makes the place and the work tangible. At one point, we see two men working on a machine. When we hear the metallic noise in the midst of this idyll, we sense the power that is needed. It is almost like dizziness, a numbness under the weight of the work. In another place, the background of the image appears to be crooked. One suddenly feels isolated, as if on another planet that no longer has contact with the rest of the world.

This is precisely what cannot be said about the film itself. Through the strict form, spaces are opened up that do not see reality as a given, but as a trigger for our curiosity. In this respect, Neuwirth seems to be related to James Benning. In reality, however, he sees so deeply through the surfaces of what moves or does not move in front of his camera that, despite all the formal differences, a comparison with Frederick Wiseman seems more appropriate to me here. In the end, however, Manfred Neuwirth is Manfred Neuwirth and From a Nearby Country is a fascinating poem of sounds and images.

Patrick Holzapfel, kino-zeit.de

Kritzendorf in three-minute instalments: Manfred Neuwirth's documentary essay ‘From a Nearby Country’

A few years before Nikolaus Geyrhalter set out for the Waldviertel region for ‘Allentsteig’ (2010), another Austrian filmmaker visited the military training area that had been set up by the German army at the time. In ‘Erinnerungen an ein verlorenes Land’ (Memories of a Lost Country), made in 1988, Manfred Neuwirth spoke to witnesses who had been forced to leave their homes in the military zone 50 years earlier, after the resettlement order. It is his best-known and most successful documentary film, albeit a rather atypical one for his previous work.

Neuwirth, a founding member of Medienwerkstatt Wien, works as a freelance experimental documentary filmmaker who has continually developed the means with which he encounters so-called reality for many years. When something interesting comes to his notice, said Neuwirth at the première of his film Aus einem nahen Land (From a Nearby Country) at the Austrian Film Museum, it makes no difference whether he has a camera with him or not – his reaction to what he sees is then just another form of recording.

Manfred Neuwirth shot the documentary essay ‘Aus einem nahen Land’ in his hometown of Kritzendorf on the Danube. In 24 three-minute takes, Neuwirth combs the landscape, accompanies a neighbouring wine-growing family through the year at work, or observes details and trivialities in the forest and meadow. The camera zooms in on a woodpile, on Sunday mass in a clearing, or stares at a winter forest road.

In reality, everything is in motion here, because Neuwirth conceives his images according to a sophisticated system: the camera, mounted on rails, makes a journey from right to left and back again, at first barely noticeable. A journey, so to speak, in three-minute cycles. Together with the sound design by Christian Fennesz, these images become an unusual and highly exciting visual experience: it is an alienation of the everyday that allows one to recognise the familiar and yet perceive it in a completely different way.

Michael Perkler, falter

From a nearby country

High summer, grazing sheep, azure blue sky, meadows gently swaying in the wind – it is an idyllic and tranquil world that Manfred Neuwirth shows in his latest documentary film. Even if the images initially suggest otherwise, ‘Aus einem nahen Land’ was not shot in the far south, but in Kritzendorf on the Danube. The small community lies northwest of Vienna and is the director's home. In 24 three-minute shots, he illuminates a vibrant microcosm and lovingly portrays the people of the region. For example, his own neighbours, a winemaking dynasty, whose members can be seen going about their daily hard work in the vineyard and at the family's wine tavern. Neuwirth shows an outdoor mass, a village festival, but also the silence of the forest with all its sounds, or a suckling pig roast with lots of smoke and ash. Numerous small miniatures of a (rural) life that takes place in the midst of our society.

Neuwirth's scenes unfold through the camera's constant slight sideways movements, drawing us into the familiar unknown. Sounds, images, colours from Austria, deeply familiar to each of us and yet rediscovered: mostly in slow motion, always in slight sideways movement and yet static. The soundtrack is asynchronous, but sometimes still seems to be in time. Everything in ‘Aus einem nahen Land’ is reality and a break with it at the same time: Neuwirth places seemingly familiar images of Austria in a new context of well-being and questioning.

Matthias Greuling, celluloid filmmagazin

The present in Kritzendorf near Vienna.

24 views of Kritzendorf.

In films, slow motion usually marks dramatic moments: the death of a hero in a hail of bullets takes on great narrative force in slow motion. The film artist Manfred Neuwirth takes a different approach. He slows down seemingly banal events: sheep under a tree, a stack of wood, people harvesting grapes.

All views from Kritzendorf, where Neuwirth did not film Viennese bathers, but locals. His 24 slow-motion shots, in which the people speak at normal speed, last three minutes each and were taken with a slight camera pan. This gives Neuwirth a breathtaking effect: he makes the passage of time perceptible in the gap between image and sound.

Alexandra Seibel, Kurier