From the East

Chantal Akerman's 1993 documentary is the record of a journey from East Germany to Moscow immediately after the collapse of the Soviet empire. She filmed from late summer into winter and said she wanted to do it while there was still time. There is no speech, no narrator and no explanation; only long tracking shots, static frames and people waiting. At bus stops, in queues, in railway stations. Akerman's method is to record a historical moment as texture rather than event. As the camera moves from one face to the next, nobody is described, everybody is simply there. Bullet holes from the Second World War still mark the walls. The film was later shown as a museum installation as well, constructed to work outside the cinema. Who it's for: viewers interested in experimental documentary, Chantal Akerman's cinema and the post-Soviet period. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative, information and context, or who will find nearly two hours of unexplained image hard to sit with.