13/02/2022 - BERLINALE 2022: Serbian director Dane Komljen returns with another cinematic experience revolving around lakes and limnology as the overarching topic

Berlin-based Serbian director Dane Komljen does not tell stories; he creates experiences by intuitively putting together elements from science, history, architecture and literature around an overarching topic. This is often also reflected in the technical approach as well: his new film, Afterwater [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which has just world-premiered in the Berlinale Forum, combines digital-camera, 16mm, VHS and Hi8 footage.

This time around, the director starts from limnology, the study of inland waters – that is, lakes – and from texts by prominent American limnologist George Evelyn Hutchinson. It is separated into three main segments. In the first, a couple of biology students are shown in their research environment at the university, before going on a camping trip to a lake – the Stechlinsee, near Berlin. Once there, they walk a lot, swim and lie on the grass, reading out loud snippets from Hutchinson's A Treatise on Limnology and Wisława Szymborska's poem Water, in Polish and Swedish. At one point, a third person joins them.

In the second part, filmed on 16mm, we suddenly feel like we are in the past, with a man dressed as an old-fashioned Catholic priest, a girl in a simple, long, blue dress, and a young man wearing corduroy trousers and suspenders. The text used – Miguel de Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, Martyr – is delivered off-screen in Spanish, in three different voices: two young-sounding ones, and an older, professorial one. Filmed at a lake in Zamora in the north of Spain, these people walk through marshland, with deliberate, careful steps, while the text refers to the title figure, comparing him to water, and describes two villages: a submerged one and its reflection.

After a brief, disorientating, home video-like VHS segment, we are in the final section, shot on Hi8, which produces an image halfway between the shaky sharpness of VHS and low-resolution digital-video quality, not unlike the shimmery effect of heat on the asphalt. Here, again, three people, dressed in matching outfits reminiscent of 1950s sci-fi film costumes, move even more slowly and deliberately, like in physical theatre. Now there is no spoken word at all, just subtitles set to the loud sound of breathing. This part was also filmed at Stechlinsee, but in this completely different context, the setting takes on a new dimension.

In a way, there is a storytelling structure to it all: we go from the present into the past, and then into the future. A viewer can instil their own meaning into such an open-plan picture, and the approach certainly inspires one to think. Regardless of the interpretation one reads into it, Komljen is returning to his trademark motifs – above all, the body: people swimming in the lake or just floating in it, two pairs of hands playing with a frog, micro-detail shots of torsos or limbs... Also, fluidity is one of his regular topics, and in combination with water, it finds a fresh form of expression, especially with regard to gender and age. The characters often wear each other’s clothes or make-up, under which they are still undeniably themselves, but this identity is far from solid.

Even though a 93-minute running time might be a stretch for such a film, especially since the last segment is the hardest to pin and there is no dialogue to cling to, the right way to approach Komljen's works is to let the experience take you on a trip.

Afterwater is a co-production between Germany's Flaneur Films, Spain's Andergraun Films, Serbia's Dart Film and Korea's Jeonju International Film Festival. Square Eyes is in charge of its international sales.