Wri/Dir: Radu Jude | Romania, Doc 71’
Radu Jude’s fascination with death is taken up again here in his enigmatically entitled Sleep#2 which makes a suitable companion piece to his 2017 outing The Dead Nation commemorating the Romanian Holocaust with a stunning collection of photos of long-dead uncelebrated Romanians from 1930s and 40s.
The Romanian auteur thought it would be interesting to focus this latest macabre documentary – one of two films he has screening in this year’s 77th Locarno International Film Festival – on the phenomenon of post mortem surveillance with an offbeat look at the final resting place of the American artist and trend-setter Andy Warhol (1928-87) in Pennsylvania. During his lifetime Warhol, a Rutherian Catholic, celebrated celebrity culture coining the phrase “15 minutes of fame”, and this film shows how his own celebrity status still draws visitors to his grave in St John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, Bethel Park nearly forty years after his death. This time there are no faces to gawp at only a stone commemoration.
A static camera pictures the Warhol grave site 24/7 throughout the seasons, by night and day. Those seeking a more dynamic action film can look away, this is very much in the style of documentarian Sergei Loznitsa’s 2016 outing Austerlitz. and says as much about the spectators as the subject matter itself. Jude films the livecam footage from a collaborative project between the Warhol family and EarthCam called simply ‘Figment’
We see the burial place in early summer with its stunning blue cornflowers right through to Christmas time as rain and snow fall heavily eventually engulfing the tombstone with its ever present decoration of Warhol’s iconic Campbell’s soup tins (from the 1962 painting) serving as a constant tribute to the artist’s pop art endeavour. The ambient score of traffic thunders on in the background and visitors and caretakers come and go each making their passive and active contributions. Inter-titles aim to offer placatory and euphemistic musings on death etc. What is the message here? Well let’s say it’s open to interpretation. Make of what you will. @MeredithTaylor.
SCREENING AT LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024