Puls zu Puls

First comes a close-up of Bressonian inspiration: two right arms, lifted and hands open, meet mid-air, wrists united by a slight touch, as if glued together by an invisible force. It is not long before the faces and bodies matching those arms are revealed by the ensuing shot—two men of different ages stand facing each other. They remain in the same position as the background shifts with each cut, from the initial industrial-looking environment to an open street, to finally somewhere resembling the back of a historical edifice. Something about the filmmaker’s insistence on their immobility suggests more than a mere cinematic rendering of a gestural performance that would call to mind famed artists’ films from the 1970s; the repeated motionless gesture seen from a few angles invites a layer of metaphor, of welcome speculation—could this unlikely, suspended embrace refer to masculinity’s much-discussed inability for exhibiting non-romantic physical affection?... On a closer look, allowed by the following camera positions, one could say both men possess a slight resemblance—could they be father and son?... Or could it simply be two actors measuring each other’s pulse, as the title plainly states, in a playfully medical twist to the classic ‘coeur à coeur’?

Yet as often with the miniatures of Friedl vom Gröller, questions pop up in one’s head as the final title card dashes without warning—it’s been three minutes already. Facing the darkness of the screen, we are left with our own pulse, and possibly a whole new way of regarding our wrists and those of others. ­(Salvador Amores)