A film essay

"Strange places there are, strange brains, strange regions of the mind, high and impoverished. On the outskirts of the cities, where the street lamps become sparser and the constables patrol in twos, one must climb the stairs in the buildings until one can climb no further, up to sloping attic rooms where young, pale geniuses, criminals in dream, brood with folded arms; up to cheaply and momentously decorated ateliers where artists, lonely, indignant and consumed from within, hungry and proud, wrestle amid clouds of cigarette smoke with ultimate and unruly ideals. Here is the end, ice, purity, nothingness. Here, no contract, no concession, no leniency, no moderation and no value counts. Here, the air is so thin and chaste that the miasmas of life are unable to thrive. Here, defiance, utmost consequence, desperately enthroned ego, liberty, madness and death hold sway." (Thomas Mann)

A film essay by Florian Hermanns. The work was created in the 2009/10 winter semester as part of the Music and AV Production 1 course.