The Ister

The movie is a poetic composition of interviews with living philosophers and atmospheric video-sequences that give an authentic picture of eastern-European countries after the Fall of the Sowjet-Empire. All these countries have a "bloody" past and the Danube crosses them. "The Ister" is the Latin word for Danube and the title of a famous poem of Hoelderlin, so the title of the Film names the agenda: poetically and metaphysically. The philosophers speak of memory, the dialectic of technical progress and innovation and comment therefore indirectly on a famous lecture Heidegger gave, commenting Hölderlin. The film is not about Heidegger, or about his philosophy, or about his interpretation of Hölderlin. It is a poetic scenario about the eastern part of Europe: a meditation with Heideggerian sounds, comments and voices. In general I think the film is too long (3h). Some sequences and some citations are too repetitive and too wilfully "profound". But nevertheless: the film leaves an impression. As I said, it has a poetic dimension of present life in Eastern Europe and the living philosophers have good things to say, not so much about Heidegger but their Heidegerrian background stands out.

It is rather amazing that a film like this was actually made. It touches very directly on deep philosophical subjects that deal with Martin Heidegger's philosophy, and his engagement with poetry, technology, and politics. These topics are discussed in interviews with three French philosophers and a German artist. Part philosophy seminar and part travelogue, the film meanders its way up the Danube to its source in the Black Forest near the university where Heidegger taught and the hut where he wrote Being and Time. Along the way we pause at factories, cities, bridges, monuments, archaeological digs, concentration camp sites, parks, etc. which are used in the service of showing the river to be a reflection of the relationships between man, nature, and technology in their recent historical context. These are prominent - and problematic - themes in Heidegger, given his involvement with the Nazi party, and the film addresses these issues very directly. In the end we get a poignant sense of the irrecoverable loss of the river from a poetic point of view.

I felt this film had a huge amount of potential given its unique subject matter and documentary format. I have read a fair amount of Heidegger's philosophy and feel that a lot of the critique around technology is highly relevant today. However, the film was not edited well and there is an improvisatory feeling throughout, leading to a very meandering three hours of viewing. Many of the side excursions were irrelevant and too lengthy, and there is often too much attention paid to trivial details. The philosophers themselves like to go off-topic, get interrupted, get too deep into technical issues, or in some cases get muddled up entirely. I must confess that the French style of philosophical discourse as a series of bald assertions of fact with no argument behind it irritates me as well. In short, the film would have benefited from a more focused vision, and perhaps a more poetical one as well (I found myself wishing that Werner Herzog had directed the film instead - he was capable of achieving some of the effects the filmmakers were going for I think.) Nevertheless, the film was quite thought-provoking in many aspects, in particular I found the last interview subject to be quite peculiar and affecting.

This heady, intellectual documentary is mostly fascinating, but occasionally does
become pretentious or dull.

Four modern philosophers debate the meanings of a series of lectures given
by the philosopher Heidegger near the start of WWII, which many see as an
apologia for the Nazis. (Side note: I chuckled to see 'Heidegger' listed as 'actor'
on the Amazon description)

This procession of talking heads is intercut with a very visual journey hundreds
of miles up the Danube river (called "the Ister" in Germany) to its source, visiting
everything from archeological sites to the ruins of concentration camps.

Together the words and images give us a look into Germany's history and
self-perception as a nation.

Basically this is an illustrated university level philosophy class, but it was far
more engaging and educational (and followable) than I (a high-school dropout)
feared, especially given its 3 hour running time.

If not quite as moving or illuminating as I hoped, it was still enjoyable, insightful
and certainly unique.

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