Gasthaus Lechmann
03/10/2018
Silver halide research photos
Experimental documentary film project
DCI, colour, 24 min
Sumvitg, CH, 2018
This documentary traces the history of this meeting place, a guest house that was a social nerve centre in its day, rich in tradition and now abandoned. The cinematographic explorations are condensed into a 24-minute work during which, even though the spaces are empty most of the time, former residents or simply people passing through the Maison Lechmann testify from time to time. Through their memories, the protagonists bring the house back to life for brief moments. Yet the story is never told in its entirety, only in fragments, so that viewers can take ownership of the narrative through deliberate ellipses.
While the film gives the full measure of the size of the house and the complexity of its architecture, it also takes us behind the scenes of an intimate theatre. The camera seeks out and surprises the protagonists through windows, keyholes and openings in the walls. Added to this treasure hunt are the words of a house that has so much to tell. The creaking of the roof timbers, the reverberations in the rooms, the vibrations and crackling sounds combine with the images to create a new narrative, to which the light, changing with the seasons and the time of day, adds a further poetic touch to this complex cinematographic dialectic.