Patrick Keiller leads viewers down a poetic path of words and imagery in ROBINSON IN RUINS
ROBINSON IN RUINS (Patrick Keiller, 2010)
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave. at Second St.
January 13-18, $9
212-505-5181
www.anthologyfilmarchives.org
British filmmaker Patrick Keiller’s follow-up to 1994’s London and 1997’s Robinson in Space is another staggering achievement, a gorgeous pairing of word and image resulting in something fresh, challenging, and unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. The conceit behind Robinson in Ruins is that it consists of found footage taken by a man named Robinson, with text from his rather eclectic notebook; in fact, every shot is carefully planned by writer, director, and editor Keiller, with the narrative added later, intoned by Vanessa Redgrave. The camera barely moves throughout the film’s one hundred and one minutes; instead, it remains still as it depicts a construction site, rapeseed fields, nuclear power plants, a mail slot, and a street corner, the only signs of movement the wind blowing through the trees, a passing car, or industrial smoke. People are virtually nonexistent as Redgrave reads Robinson’s complex treatise on agriculture, architecture, the economic crisis, history, politics, and opium, all centered around, as Keiller said at the press preview at the 2010 New York Film Festival, “the problem of dwelling.” Robinson in Ruins is like a tour through a thrilling art exhibition, each piece beautifully composed, coupled with fiercely intellectual poetry that is wonderful to listen to, even if much of it is impossible to understand. The film is screening January 13-18 at Anthology Film Archives as part of “Patrick Keiller’s Robinson Trilogy,” which also includes multiple showings of London and Robinson in Space as well as Keiller’s 2000 work The Dilapidated Dwelling and the 1986 short The End.