Bawke - POV - Aarhus Universitet

42 p.o.v. number 21 March 2006
Staircase:
The power of memory – sich alles erinnern
Dorthe Wendt
For a brief moment, the opaqueness of sound and image – maybe the
beginning of a goodbye to life – is broken up by the power of memory
as a means for holding on to life. Having to let go and say farewell is
lighter now.
Addressed by her name, Greta, the protagonist of Staircase
manages to hold on to her life, and at the same time, the mentioning of
her name starts a stream of memories that insist on cohesion,
continuation, passion and redemption. Greta is the same individual,
young and old; she experiences the same passion on her way down the
stairs, out of her life, as she did on the way up the stairs, entering life
with her loved one. The passion of love or sexuality is not reserved for
any one age but can be connected to the experience of happiness here
and now and through one’s memories. What we remember, no one
can take away from us.
Staircase is a poetic film, poetry in sound and images. When Greta
hears her name being spoken, she wakes up from her almost
unconscious state and remembers a situation from when she was a
young woman and someone also said her name. Her name, Greta, is
the catalyst of her awakened memories. From the opaqueness of sound
and images that correspond with the half-unconscious and ill old lady,
weak and maybe demented, the director cuts to a point of view of the
old woman. This viewpoint is characterised by the blurred light and
the subdued sounds from her troubled breathing, her sighs and a
person who – with a hand to protect against the white light – tries to
contact her by saying her name.