‘Tibetan Recollections’ by Manfred Neuwirth, an audiovisual notebook from the years 1988 to 1995, filmed on video, 23 minutes long. Without ever lapsing into ethno-kitsch, Neuwirth films details, everyday activities, street scenes. The images run in slow motion, as if there were an irreducible difference between so-called reality and the eye of the observer. The sounds retain their ‘natural’ speed, spaces for the imagination open up, which may also refer to the two levels, the interplay of which seems to have a particularly strong influence on life in Tibet: the private and the political, with its dictatorial suppression.

As in his previous documentary films, Neuwirth works consistently on and with his material, placing obvious markers: A pan from an illuminated window into the void of absolute darkness is not only ‘simply beautiful’, but also tells in many ways of limits (of perception, of approach) - and is reminiscent of Neuwirth's Aids film ‘Vom Leben Lieben Sterben’ (About Living Loving Dying), in which alienated window shutters were used as binding/separating accents.

When, towards the end, some colourfully dressed nuns laugh wildly while gathered in the picture for a kind of family photo, and one of them extremely slowly puts on a purple hat in front of her face, one witnesses a snapshot that, in this condensed intensity, is truly unique in domestic filmmaking.

Christian Cargnelli, Falter 50/95

Tibetan Recollections

In his memories of Tibet, collected with camera and tape recorder between 1988 and 1995, Neuwirth compiles short, canned glances at a world that cannot be captured with voice-over commentary and the attitude of a cultural film. Instead, Neuwirth approaches his subject impressionistically: in 35 slow-motion travel images, he reflects a universe in which resistance against Chinese oppressors and the poverty of the people seems to lie in the comforting light and beauty of the country – and in retreating to tradition, to old rituals, to work and movement. Neuwirth's Tibetan Recollections are elegies of subjective vision, counterpointed and augmented by the mostly asynchronous sound-splinters: a highly complex (and beautiful) work about the dust of the streets, the light of day, the faces of the people and the flickering of the propaganda television screens.

Stefan Grissemann, Die Presse 23.1.96