Cycling the Frame & The Invisible Frame
Spanning 21 years and probably the defining political event of the latter 20th century, Cynthia Beatt’s Frame films are at once ruminative cinema poems and unique historical documents.
In 1988, the British-born Berliner collaborated with a then-emerging Tilda Swinton to film Cycling the Frame, wherein the actress toured the 160km “Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart” that encircled the former West Berlin. Juxtaposing the serene insularity of life in the West with glimpses beyond the oppressive concrete barrier, Beatt captures Swinton cycling in silent reflection, shading languidly under a tree, snapping a polaroid of guards in a watchtower, and, in moments of lyrical inner monologue, lamenting the madness of it all.
To mark the twentieth anniversary of the Berlin wall’s demolition, Beatt and Swinton reprised their collaboration with 2009’s The Invisible Frame. Here Swinton re-traces her route, but also weaves into the once-forbidden territory beyond the wall’s remaining fragments, which stand as both literal and figurative monuments. This second journey is similarly elegiac, featuring recitations of Yeats and Robert Louis Stevenson, and accompanied by the ambient soundscape of Simon Fisher-Turner (who also scored Cycling the Frame).
No doubt, on paper, both efforts sound hopelessly pretentious, but thankfully, on screen, the opposite is true. Rather than being alienating, or unduly abstruse, they achieve a genuine poignancy, particularly when presented as a double bill. At times, both films are also legitimately playful, while, in the ever-arresting Swinton, Beatt offers us an ideal tour companion.
Cycling the Frame and The Invisible Frame will make their Canadian debuts exclusively at the Projection Booth, beginning Friday, December 2.