Reynold Reynolds Recreates 1930s Germany in a 7-Screen Film Installation
In early-1930s Berlin,
production began for a film telling the story of a writer’s shocking encounters
at an unconventional cabaret; the film was never finished due to political
turmoil and economic crisis, but its director had the foresight to save
storyboards, scripts, and completed footage in a crate, in hopes of its future
completion. In 2011 the materials were uncovered in an archive in Siberia, then
sent to Poland where Alaska-born, Berlin-based artist Reynold Reynolds found them. After a year-long restoration of the materials,
Reynolds was able to recreate and complete the story in a compelling
installation titled The Lost. A seven-channel,
seven-screen looping film, The Lost is an
immersive experience in which the viewer is called to piece together and
interpret its narrative. Visitors to West Den Haag’s presentation at ARCOmadrid this year will have the opportunity to experience The
Lost, which was only recently finished and premiered in Den
Haag last fall.
Broken up into
seven different loops, The Lost follows
protagonist Christopher, who recently moved to a cabaret establishment in
Berlin; the character is based on American writer Christopher Isherwood, who
lived in Berlin in the 1930s and wrote the stories that inspired the Broadway
musical Cabaret. The proprietor, a strange
elderly gentleman, takes in young female dancers and actresses to live and work
there; in the building’s basement these women are subjected to mysterious
scientific experiments. Townspeople and local officials become concerned with
the cabaret’s activities and Christopher finds himself amid turmoil. The
Lost blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, while also
alluding to the political unrest in Germany on the eve of the Nazi regime.
Reynolds requires
viewers to determine the film’s significance as they walk through the
installation and view all seven screens; “the heart of the
matter is what really exists and what’s true,” he explains. While his work is often characterized by a dark
tone and concerned with transformation, in this case he adeptly transports the
viewer back in time, emulating the 1930s German original’s stylistic elements,
from imagery to actresses to the score, while presenting it in such a way as to
attract contemporary viewers.
The Lost
is on view at West Den Haag, ARCOmadrid, Booth 9G03, Feb. 19th–23rd, 2014.
Watch Reynolds
discuss the film in West Den Haag’s trailer
for The Lost.
