MENU TOTAL
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Monografie: SAY GOODBYE TO THE STORY

Menu Total

Christoph Schlingensief
Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1985
81 min
V'20

Die Räume in Schlingensiefs Filmen beschrieb Georg Seeßlen, vielleicht mit MENU TOTAL vor Augen, als „eine Art urbaner Nische, Brachland, einen Ort, an dem Kinder früher manchmal verbotene Spiele gespielt haben“. Auf der Picknickwiese in Mühlheim a.d. Ruhr werden also die alten Nazi-Uniformen ausgepackt, Helge Schneider tappst durch einen Traum in körnigem Schwarzweiß, der bei der Berlinale 1986 ausgepfiffen wurde – „Wim Wenders ging nach 10 Minuten!“ Wäre er doch geblieben, in diesem Film, in dem man in nucleo (vor den folgenden Kernspaltungen) alles findet, was Schlingensiefs Werk besonders macht.

Mit MY WIFE IN 5 

“A dictum that Christoph Schlingensief formulated and which he always attributed to Dieter Roth: ‘We scrutinize the space and the space scrutinizes us.’ This way of thinking started early with Schlingensief, with the images of MENU TOTAL, for instance – a film made in surroundings familiar to him where he opened himself up to these surroundings intensively.” (Anna-Catherina Gebbers) “Post-post-modernist; touches of pre-determined expressionist light dark but yet (not) abstract. Viewers as eaters of images that breathe intermittent passion (certainly) for the cinema. Old Seventies mistake: to be able to see everything; stock too sensitive, no mysteries, no gaps or spaces to doodle your way out. Solution is to stretch grain and yes, again, keep it breathing (AND remarkably humorous. People populate what otherwise might abstract and take off. Marginal and outside avant-gardes though conscious of tradition and preoccupation of former image thieves. Steal anything, reproduce and deal another hand with rules changing with the wind – oh! so freely. Definitely NOT cold and probably, Christoph (Schlingensief) says, BEYOND most post-isms here today. Hang up the old celluloid meat and chew the cinephile’s heart out.” (Donald Ranvaud, Recipe for a Total Menu, 1986)

With MY WIFE IN 5

Credits
  • Helge Schneider
  • Volker Bertzky
  • Dietrich Kuhlbrodt
  • Alfred Edel
  • Reinald Schnell
  • Anna Fechter
  • Joe Bausch
  • Annette Bleckmann
  • Thirza Bruncken
  • Wolfgang Schulte
  • Christoph Schlingensief
  • Christoph Schlingensief
  • Andreas Wölki
  • Eva Will
  • Helge Schneider
DEM Filmproduktion, Hymen II
Filmgalerie 451
35 mm
SW
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