By the Dike Sluice

Ratings & Reviews

Amrit Rukhaiyaar

A River's Wisdom.

elizabeth l・

heavy

SpacePirate

Intriguing visuals of sea side life, and a despair filled narrative, make for an interesting 12 mins. I am completely unfamiliar with Nestler so kudos to MUBI for unearthing. Look forward to seeing more of his work here. Certainly a unique short. 3 stars

tintinmugshot

Poem to declaim and watch.

EdieEmm

Like a grumpy, humourless, German version of a Varda short. This Dike Sluice is a curmudgeon worthy of Beckett, pretty much. With a thirteen minute monologue... For more quirky German anthropomorphic narration, try Rabbit a la Berlin - the Cold War through the eyes of generations of bunnies: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/rabbit_a_la_berlin

David Sindmark Hörnfeldt

3½.

Loz Loory

Lovely and affecting. Reminded me of the poems in Edgar Lee Masters' "Spoon River Anthology."

OrfgenT

Interessante Bilder, eher mittelmäßige Kamera und ein zwar durchaus kritischer, gut beobachtender Kommentar, aber letztlich doch eher piefig. / Interesting pictures; rather mediocre camera; critical, well observant comment; but in the end, rather an plain documentary.

DrFirestone

The old dike sluice didn't really speak to me, only some interesting footage of a small German town and its people in the 1960s is this film's redeeming factor.

Corey

Boring. It's only like 10 minutes but it was still hard to sit through.

Jacques de Villiers

An animist reversal of humans comprehending the environment in which they are entangled, here we have a segment of the environment comprehending the humans with which IT is entangled. Cinema is the perfect medium for enacting this reversal, since by its very multiperspectival nature it has the potential to decentre human experience. Could have pushed its central premise further though.

Aileilaa

Some parts it felt like a nostalgic old man recounting memories. The shots were like photographs; they only revealed one story at a time (though there could be multiple things happening in that story). Other parts felt more like an old forgotten god observing the humans that it serves. Kind of like a Jack Frost-like character. Very interesting style, but more impressed with the lines of the narrator than anything

Superfrog

Surprisingly enticing tale told directly by a feature of infrastructure, or nature, or both about its relationship with things, function and people. I am impressed it works.

panagiotatos

7,5/10. A sluice as a narrator and some bleak images of the village nearby and its inhabitants, depending on it to make a living, make this film resemble a novel or a nostalgic poem.

fearraigh

It's cheering that there are still names lurking in the margins of the canon that one has yet to discover. I can't believe I had never heard of Peter Nestler before. By the Dike Sluice is at once thrilling and haunting. There is a heartwarming portrait of a small community but the darkness of German history is attested to in the titular dike's narrative, which is delivered in a fearsome, stentorian voice.

FISCHER

D'une évidente poésie mélancolique, teintée d'ironie et de fatalisme ! www.cinefiches.com

natsume

the sluice speaks

Scienceofphantoms

I adore film and poetry that elides story for setting, selects a place and sits on it. Marvelous film compositions here, too, and a melancholic relationship. Favors casting small signs of civilization over nature, both of which sort of peel away at each other's significance. Fascinating stuff.

Paul

What made this especially interesting to me was the in-sync and out-of-sync meandering between words/poem and picture.

captainfez

He's pretty mouthy for a piece of infrastructure.

tinderness

Unerbittlich und fast wie die Ewigkeit ist das Alte Siel. Es schaut aufnerksam aber auch ein wenig gelangweilt den BewohnerInnen des Fischerdorfes zu, welches an ihrem Ende liegt.

Oliver Müller

poetisch dokumentarische Ethnografie einer ostfriesischen Dorfgemeinschaft der Nachkriegszeit. Sehenswert!

Michael Diers

Ein Sprecher zitiert einen melancholisch-poetischen Text aus der Sicht eines Siels (damit ist eine Deicheinfahrt zwischen Meer und Hafen für Schiffe gemeint) aus dem Off. Währenddessen werden Impressionen von Hafen, Menschen und Schiffen aus der rauen Küstenlandschaft Ostfrieslands gezeigt. Einmaliges Filmmaterial und für mich eine der ganz großen Überraschungen des Jahres!

lou.

There's something uncannily fascinating in having faith in the sea.