(2005; 93 min. USA)

~ ABOVE IMAGE LINKS TO THE MOVIE ~
DVD available here

"Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Requiem for a Friend” is the foundation for this
marvelous production of mature emotion and deep wisdom; few films
have been able to explore the issues surrounding death with such
grace and intelligence." Phil Hall, filmthreat.com (5 stars)

 

Stills from the film, "Requiem For a Friend" excerpts, synopsis



LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rainer Maria Rilke"

Oh don’t take from me what I am slowly learning. I’m sure you have
gone astray if you are moved to homesickness for anything in this dimension.
We transform these Things; they aren’t real, they are only the reflections
upon the polished surface of our being. -- Rainer Maria Rilke
 from "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND".

1908, Paris. Over three fever-dream nights in the Hotel Biron, poet
Rainer Maria Rilke encounters the ghost of his good friend, artist
Paula Modersohn-Becker, who died shortly after giving birth to her
first child. In response to this haunting, Rilke writes his epic prose
lament, "Requiem for a Friend", as a tribute to Paula and to women
torn between choosing a life sacrificed to Art or to Motherhood.


LLOYD BROKEN as "RILKE, SYLVI ALLI as 'PAULA-MODERSOHN BECKER

I have my dead and I have let them go and was amazed to
see them so contented, so at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation . Only you return; brush past me, loiter,
try to knock against something, so the sound reveals your presence.
 -- Rainer Maria Rilke from "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND".

One hundred years later, three women - a painter, an actress
and a dancer - and a theatre director prepare to stage Rilke's
"Requiem" in Berkeley California as abstract performance ritual.
 (this performance was staged and filmed before a live audience)


LEE VOGT as "The Director"; LLOYD BRICKEN as "The Critic "

The director's real life becomes mysteriously entangled in the
metaphors of Rilke's prose when a young Rilke-obsessed drama critic
insists on penning a story about their upcoming performance. As past
and future plots entwine and unfold, the heart of Rilke's melancholic,
searing vision of love and loss gives way to unexpected revelation.


LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rainer Maria Rilke"

Once ritual lament would have been chanted; women would have
been paid to beat their breasts and howl for you all night, when all is silent.
Where can we find such customs now ? So many have long since disappeared
or been disowned. That’s what you had to come for: to retrieve the lament
that we omitted. -- Rainer Maria Rilke, from "REQUIEM FOR A FRIEND".

Click this for more on Rilke and Modersohn-Becker



Film Clip, Vision Statement, Credits, Critical Reviews

 


Four consecutive scenes from the movie (9 min.; not a trailer)

VISION STATEMENT
I have been living with Rilke's epic lament, "Requiem For a Friend" since staging it
as an avant garde performance in 1990 in Seattle. The Greater Circulation (2005)
celebrates the fruition of my efforts to bring Rilke's work to cinema. His "Requiem"
is included in its entirety throughout the film as Rilke's inner narrative over three
fever-dream nights in a Paris hotel where he was haunted by a visitation from
the ghost of his good friend, artist Paula Modersohn-Becker who passed away
a year earlier. The final twenty minutes of this film features a restaging
of the original paratheatrical performance fifteen years later.
(see the performance video near bottom of this page)

- ANTERO ALLI



SYLVI ALLI, LEAH KAHN and FELECIA FAULKNER

VERTICAL POOL and PARATHEATRICAL RESEARCH present an ANTERO ALLI film
"THE GREATER CIRCULATION ". LLOYD BRICKEN, FELECIA FAULKNER, SYLVI ALLI,
LEE VOGT, LEAH KAHN, SLOBODAN PAITCH with ANTERO ALLI as the voice of Rilke.


SLOBODAN PAITCH as "Rodin" and LLOYD BRICKEN as "Rilke"

Director of Photography, CHRIS RASMUSSEN. Second Unit D.P., SEAN BLOSL.
Sound Recorder, MALCOLM SHERWOOD. Edited by CHRIS ODELL and ANTERO ALLI.
C.G.I. Effects by MICHAEL McWHIRTER. Music by SCRIABIN, BRAHMS, LOOP!STATION,
AMBER ASYLUM, and SYLVI ALLI. Associate Producers: LILY NOVA, FELECIA FAULKNER,
and CHRIS RASMUSSEN. Producers: JODIE EVANS, SYLVI ALLI, and ANTERO ALLI.
Executive Producers, VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS, PARATHEATRICAL RESEARCH
Screenplay by ANTERO ALLI. Conceived and directed by ANTERO ALLI

CLICK THIS FOR THE REVIEWS OF THIS FILM



video of performance


PERFORMANCE VIDEO


Click above image to watch the live performance within the film



about the filmmaker

 


ANTERO ALLI

 

ANTERO ALLI  is a West coast-based filmmaker whose deep background in
experimental theatre (since 1972) imprints his underground films with their
thearical sensibility. His films occasionally screen on the arthouse circuit from
Seattle to Los Angeles and points in between. Antero is the founder/director
of ParaTheatrical ReSearch in Portland OR where he resides with his wife,
singer/composer Sylvi Alli.

Director's Project Journal
Preproduction observations and notes

This Film's Screening History

Filmography
Clips, reviews, interviews, stills

 


Nick Walker as "Embryo"

VERTICAL POOL PRODUCTIONS

verticalsource@gmail.com

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