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Looking through the lens with an attitude
The voice of German filmmaker Maria Lang can be heard as she reads some entries from her journals spanning the 14 years she took care of her widowed mother.
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A scene from 'Der Schmetterling im Winter'. (MUBI.com/-)
T
he voice of German filmmaker Maria Lang can be heard as she reads some entries from her journals spanning the 14 years she took care of her widowed mother, which started soon after the passing of her father on his way to the bakery in 1991.
It is the opening scene of the 29-minute-long Der Schmetterling im Winter (Butterfly in Winter), which was recently screened in Jakarta.
While it was difficult to catch any emotion from the narrator speaking in her mother tongue, the English subtitles provided a gripping emotional arc for the documentary, in which at a point Lang realized that she was no longer a daughter but merely a caregiver to her own mother.
The silent images that followed the narration spoke volumes of the intimacy between mother and daughter. They shared the morning ritual of Lang opening the window of her mother’s bedroom in her childhood home, moving her mother from the bed to a wheelchair, washing and dressing her, combing and braiding her long white hair and preparing a meal for the woman, who was 96 years old at the time of filming in 2005.
Fellow Berlin-based experimental filmmaker Ute Aurand took the footage with a 16-millimeter camera from different angles and added scenes every time that made the documentary, despite the repetitious activities it depicts, a testimony of a life journey with ups and downs, love and distance, responsibilities and memories – all from the eyes of a friend.
The screening of Der Schmetterling im Winter was part of a film screening and workshop program called “Film is Her Notebook” that ran from Nov. 8 to 14.
The program was designed by Indonesian film programmer/archivist Lisabona Rahman and Ute Aurand as a showcase of four women filmmakers’ works in the 16 mm format. The week-long event was presented by Lab Labalaba and the Goethe Institut with support from the Rubanah Underground Hub, Kinosaurus and the Berlin-based Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art.
