Egomania – Island without Hope

As ever, Schlingensief is out to tramp new cinematic ground with EGOMANIA, showering his audience with an experimental onslaught of pictures. sounds and colour-compositions. (1987)

If you want to despair in this world. then don't do it with insulfed arrogance, rather try it with Werner Schröter, Herbert Achternbusch, or, at least, with Christoph Schlingensief. The young filmer from Oberhausen became the apocalyptican of the German movie scene. EGOMANIA – INSEL OHNE HOFFNUNG, which was shown on the Berlin Filmfestival 1987, is his latest film. Just like in MENU TOTAL he runs wild with an unscrupulous way of celebrating his phantasies of torture and destruction. But step by step he learns to bring them into an artistic order and to bring mythological contrasts into the chaos, so the audience gets a hint of logical consistency. Beneath the wild surface of the film, which is dominated by “devil” Udo Kier and Tilda Swinton (CARAVAGGIO), a theme of Dracula/ Nosferatu and an underlying dramatic conflict between father and son emerge. And also you get a feeling of Pendereckis “Auschwitz Oratorium” through the noise, the screeming and the laughter of hell. Whoever is overcome by a desire for clearing up the world: Christoph Schlingensief gives the prescription. (epd film, 1987)