Film info: American Passages

Film Information

Original Title	American Passages
English Title	American Passages
Director	Ruth Beckermann
Country
Year	2011
Format	35 mm
Colour	Color
Duration	120 min

Production:

Guión: Ruth Beckermann
Fotografía: Antoine Parouty, Lisa Rinzler
Montaje: Dieter Pichler
Producción: Ruth Beckermann

Synopsis

In 1958 Swiss photographer Robert Frank published The Americans, a landmark book for both modern photography and the representation of what we call America, which was the result of a car trip through the United States. Fifty years later, Austrian documentary filmmaker Ruth Beckerman takes a similar trip to record images in motion. What in Frank’s work were blurred, on-the-go instants and flashes of a boundless reality, here they get unfolded in time, forming scenes, conversations, or the simple observation of road lines undulating from a car window. Of course, this is a particular time for the US: the financial crisis just hit and Beckermann’s eye focuses on some of its effects. And yet this is not a documentary of denunciation but a panoramic view, in which the camera goes beyond circumstances and into the essence of a country and the huge project that led it to deform reality and even create its own. At that point, the film’s strange quality can also cause fascination and objectivity: a privilege of the foreigner’s eye.