Under his cosmunym FERMAGHORG, Birri spent more than ten years elaborating this pataphysical essay film which also works as an experimental sci-fi rendering of Thomas Mann’s The Transposed Heads (the same source for Jodorowsky’s recently recovered La Cravate). The film contains all of the elements from his earlier work (the anti-animation of La primera fundación de Buenos Aires, the dialectical, rapid cutting style of his early documentaries) and much else besides. It communes with Lettrism, Czech New Wave, Carmelo Bene, Actionism, Arte povera, to name only what immediately comes to mind. Throughout the film, Birri probes the politics and history of cinema culminating midway through in a series of distressed interviews with filmmakers including Rossellini, Godard, Nemec (in absentia) and Mekas.
(KG)
