Cast

Dore O., Geeske Hof-Helmers

Film description

T-WO-MEN begins with intermingling scenes of an urban evening panorama. Two women appear in a passage between two courtyards. The camera focuses closely on parts of their bodies: knee, thigh, hair, neck. One of the most interesting structural films by Werner Nekes is a story of love between two women, told in five parts. The plot is fragmentary. Using his unique structural techniques, the director focuses on capturing the atmosphere of the lesbian relationship while observing the intimacy of his characters. By using multiple exposures, slow motion, rapid montages of short takes, loops and stroboscopic effects, Nekes creates a hypnotic spectacle of pictures and music. In T-WO-MEN, silence is just as important as sound, building the changing rhythms and atmospheres of the film’s distinct parts: from romantic one-on-one moments to violent passion. With a quasi-fictional story for its starting point, this feature-length experiment by the German artist escapes traditional narrative and draws attention to the importance of form in film composition. By the same principle that the alternating sides of a spinning thaumatrope disk produce a third, composite image, Nekes intends us to read the title intuitively as ‘TWO WOMEN’.