Abendland

From the acclaimed director of Pripyat, Elsewhere and Our Daily Bread, Abendland (in English, The West) is a brilliantly evocative film essay about the Western world, specifically its affluence and exclusiveness. Director Geyrhalter explores this theme with striking images, all filmed at night, that are typical of a modern, industrialized, wealthy civilization: a streamlined crematorium, a complicated security surveillance room, a cold and eerily quiet television news studio. Mass mechanization is a common thread throughout, turning what should be intimate exchanges between people into depersonalized mechanical operations. The director states that he wanted to “capture Europe in a film.” And it is captured, with a wealth of details that makes us look at Europe and ourselves in a new way. —Hot Docs