Chantal Akerman – Too Far, Too Close
D'est, au bord de la fiction [From the East: bordering on fiction], 1995
D'Est is based on Chantal Akerman's travels through Central and Eastern Europe between 1991 and 1993, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is the story of a journey to East Germany in spring, to Poland and Ukraine in summer, and on to Moscow in winter. In the resulting 25-part video installation, D'Est: au bord de la fiction, the documentary footage is grouped in eight triptychs according to certain formally harmonious patterns. On a concluding 25th screen, the filmmaker can be heard, talking off-screen about the project's motives. D'Est contains all the ingredients that make it Akerman's best known work in the film/video installation art genre: the interplay between documentary and fiction; travelling shots versus static shots; an interest in the aesthetics of time and duration; clinical observation and atmospheric musings; portraits of landscapes, cities and people, many of them seen waiting.
