Films - Produced Films 

Bornapart (2005)

Genre: Experimental Short Film based in classical music.
Duration: 15 minutes.
Topic: Recurring structures of violence, war and ethnic cleansing.
Awards: Andrew Britten Award for Best Short 2005.
Public Discussion: 27 September 2005, Beethoven Hall, Heiligenstadt, Vienna, Austria.

Detailed Synopsis: On the surface Bornapart tells the story of a middle-aged artist in the process of losing her hearing. As she tries to adapt to a world where sound is no longer relevant, she starts to identify with the tragedy of Beethoven's life. Not only did Beethoven lose his hearing in the same stage of his life as she does, but in his case it additionally meant the loss of the one thing that made his work as a musician possible. As an artist herself, the woman recognises the greater tragedy of Beethoven's life.

The narrative intimates Beethoven’s disillusion with the world, not only because of his fear that people would discover his pending deafness, but also because he could not reconcile his philosophy with what he saw in the world of his day. The narrative thus becomes more deeply concerned with issues of identification and disillusionment. We also see that the woman feels the same way towards the world and her place in it. Even though they were born centuries apart, they still recognise the same ideological problems humans are faced with every day. Beethoven and the woman are therefore not only linked by their fear of how deafness will affect their lives, but also by their worldview, ethics and politics. They both are artists: Beethoven a musician, the woman a painter.

The soundtrack plays a major part within the narrative since the Eroica Symphony (the music in the film) historically denotes Beethoven's initial faith in world politics, since he originally dedicated the symphony to Napoleon Buonaparte, whom be believed to be an example to other leaders in bringing freedom and justice to the world. But when Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor, Beethoven destroyed the dedication on the title page and dedicated the symphony to "what humanity could be". Thus, Beethoven's outlook on freedom, truth and justice, which is echoed in his music (particularly in the Eroica), becomes ironic if one considers what has happened in the world throughout the centuries since he wrote it. It points to the world's inability to hear this message even though they have long praised his music and declared it to be the work of a genius. In this respect, deafness becomes a state of mind and not a physical condition. The film therefore tells the story of two individuals who, like others in history, try to live in a world where freedom, truth and justice never had a place. We are ultimately all born into a world where we can either live a life of deafness to these virtues or a life apart from the mainstream mentality that governs the world and most of its people.

Critical/Social Dimension: According to the nineteenth century German philosopher Johann Gustav Droysen, history is a continuum in the sense that individual historical events in the human world are related in a network of inner relationships, hanging together in their similarities and contrasts so that trends can be observed. This philosophy especially points out the genetic relationships that manifest themselves negatively and positively in human existence. Bornapart uses this idea of similarity negatively through references of "past history" (concentration camps) and "present history" (killing in Iraq seen on television and press photographs in the woman's artwork). This seems paradoxical since it cannot be denied that many things did change since World War II. The uniqueness of events cannot be denied. Bornapart deals with the effects these changes have on our lives both publicly and privately. The forward spiralling consequence of their having taken place is therefore recognised. In the film, the effect that Nazi Germany has had on German society as a whole inevitably also influenced the woman's outlook on and reaction to her present society . The atrocities that took place during World War II had a global effect still felt today. Not only does she live in a world where the past returns to haunt her in the form of her father's legacy, but one recognises that aspects of the past recur daily in countries like Iraq (albeit in changed and subtly different political forms). Patterns thus appear, showing that humans certainly may react to what happens in history and adapt the superstructure of their world so that it becomes dramatically different. It may often look "better", but historical scrutiny shows that not only the good becomes better, but that the bad becomes "better bad", so to speak. What changes dramatically, is the obvious and visible superstructure. Tendencies and trends thus need to be uncovered and shown. Bornapart aims to explore this "exposure" of history in that the woman tries to come to terms with past and present world events through art and identification.

The German thinker Wilhelm Dilthey emphasised the idea of a spiralling force by concentrating on the personal and experiential dimension. Humans "live", that is, they experience history and re-live it through memory. This has important effects on human self-understanding and on our reactions to what happens in the world - on a large scale, on an individual scale, and on the level of relating the two. In Bornapart the woman experiences history. She experiences the past of her father in the present of her being. Frustration and despair result. Moreover, the experience of her deafness is related to the same experience of Beethoven. This enables irony to play its role: music/hearing :: disjointed sound/loss of hearing.