“I love the spontaneity of this situation. If you'd like to spend the night, we'll make up as many rooms as needed. I'm pleased to see the old spirit of improvisation is alive and well.”El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel] (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Jun
3
National Black Bear Day
A young brown bear in a luxuriously furnished room. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
As part of a witty surprise, Lucía Nóbile (Lucy Gallardo) arranged a #bear and three #sheep for the lavish dinner party she's thrown for her fellow #opera-loving guests. However, the joke is not appreciated and in the cause of the evening – and a ruined dinner when the staff decides to go even before serving any of the #food – the company find that they cannot leave the salon.
– Edmundo Nobile
While the beasts roam the house, the elite are faced with hunger, primal urges, and no motivation to leave.
Ballardian
Sie fallen unerwartet in einem traumlosen Schlaf.Grauzone [Zones] (Fredi M. Murer, 1979)
May
29
Mount Everest Day
Julia (Olga Piazza) waking from a unusually deep sleep. DP: Hans Liechti.
Grauzone takes place in one of the three spaces documented in Murer's beautifully titled documentary Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, daß wir da sind [We, the mountain people, who live in the mountains are not really to blame for being there] (1974). One valley lives in tune with its natural rhythm, the second experiences a transition to modernity.
The third space, the “grey zone” – both this film's title and a descriptive term for an undefined neutral zone – is where the Bergler have become technology dwellers, where they live on summits made of concrete instead of rock. Where rumours about a #pandemic stir an ancient, unnamed fear. And symptoms: the sudden urge to wander out in nature, an acute melancholy, an overall hyper awareness. A young, prosperous couple become infected and pick up secret radio transmissions. What they believed was concrete, solid, immovable, suddenly shows signs of a shift.