Journeys from Berlin/1971

In Journeys from Berlin/1971, Rainer weaves together street scenes; fragments from a teenage diary; a couple (Amy Taubin and Vito Acconci, heard entirely offscreen) discussing the issue of revolutionary violence while cooking dinner; and an extraordinary monologue by film theorist Annette Michelson, who assumes the role of an analysand, recounting her erotic history and related ruminations to a therapist played by a man, a woman, and a nine year old. What results is a potent, digressive essay, achieved through radical juxtaposition, on insurrectionary struggle and the convolutions of inner life. “Let’s begin somewhere,” the opening crawl text announces: “In 1950 a draft for a political criminal law in the Federal Republic of Germany contained the following sentence: ‘The danger to the community comes from organized people.’”