2+2=22 [The Alphabet]

Statement on the production of the film by Heinz Emigholz (Pym Films)  The film documents the genesis of the recordings and production of some music pieces by the band KREIDLER that were released on their album ABC in May 2014. Continuous, long, observing filmic shots were taken. The recordings were made from 8 to 12 October 2013 in the recording studio of the Georgian film production complex Kartuli Pilmi in Tbilisi, Georgia. A large, wood-panelled hall outfitted with moveable walls was used. The room was originally conceived as a recording studio for a film orchestra; the board of censors used it as an internal screening room.About 20 sequences from the documentary footage of the creation of the music pieces were selected to form the backbone of the film. Interstitials are added before and between the musical sequences. These interstitials consist of two components: first, documentary footage of architectonic situations in Tbilisi that, in the course of the film, result in a portrait of the city; and second, notebooks leafed through by means of film-technical animation. The notebooks were written and illustrated by Heinz Emigholz in the course of one year. The basic structure of the film is shots alternating between the musical recordings and the city and notebook insertions. The film is a reply to Godard’s ONE PLUS ONE inasmuch as the main part of each film consists of the documentation of the work of a contemporary music group. The simplified, political-pop-ideological macramé of ONE PLUS ONE makes way for an objectifying city portrait in 2+2=22 [The Alphabet]. In contrast to Godard’s construct, here ‘propaganda’ results not from acted sketches and sarcasms, but relatively reservedly from the declamation of municipal surfaces coupled with text-image collages.The film is not an advertising film or a music clip for a pop band, but creates a new relationship between music and documentation. It contrasts the real work on pieces of music with the documentary footage of the site of the music’s creation, a former Soviet republic on the southern edge of the Caucasus, and with the poetic notes of a more Western-style commentary. The observation of a collective creative process and its pauses stands at the centre of the film. Rudiments of reality and its sound scenarios interrupt these studies, and poetic declamations form ideological opposite poles to it. That these can no longer operate as a politically generally understandable language is just one of the truths that have emerged since the release of ONE PLUS ONE. That the work of the Rolling Stones shown in it has gained increasing dignity through its calm continuation, while, in contrast, Godard’s productions have aged poorly as historical documents, could be regarded as a remarkable contrary correlation movement in time. That could happen with this film, as well.Pym Films, Berlin