Water from Grain

Water from Grain

The poetry of Water from Grain grows out of an apparent contradiction steming from its seeming timelessness while it plays out on the clearly recognizable outskirts of Vienna in the years of 2011 and 2012. Josephine Ahnelt accompanies two youths, a boy and a girl, with her Super-8 camera. Her main interest is focused upon the woman, her subtle beauty and her shapely form. Black and white and silent, the film focuses upon the visual impact of fleeting moments employing lighting, facial expression and gesture rather than dialogue to conjure its atmosphere. The footage was hand processed and is hence blemished, the resulting impurities obscuring and transcending certain scenes.

The first chapter unfolds at an airport. There where the longing for far away places and the other provides the stuff of fantasy the protagonists lean against the railing of a parking garage and gaze downwards, they pursue each other in a game of catch and the young woman poses in the shadow play of the concrete desert. She seems older than the young man, more thoughtful and closer to adulthood. Both seem to use this anonymous place of transit as a location for their freedom and curiosity, as a space for unsupervised movement.

In the meantime, three other young people take happy and affectionate leave of a fourth person. They are older and have reason to be at the airport. The third chapter of the film also takes place in a public space, a small park that serves as a good meeting place for the two youths and their friends. Their physical enactment of tussling and necking are expressions of boredom as well as a youthful discovery of sensuality.

Where does the trip of life lead? As viewers we know nothing about the protagonists, everything is a matter of projection and guessing: But it is precisely in this indirect, lyrical, documentary-like form that a voyeuristic enthusiasm for stories beyond pure representation finds nourishment.
(Brigitta Burger-Utzer)

Translation: Eve Heller