Europe is a mortally sick woman who is killing time with her Chinese Man Machine. They are at their last post. Outside lies a snow covered wasteland. Elsewhere, on a glacier is an institute, where a group of nurses are faithfully playing their regressive part in the execution of a new world order. Their trance is disrupted by a stranger. All is lost. The final act is about to begin.
During the making of W, the world has changed in front of our eyes, and I have had an exceptional chance to include aspects of the almost overwhelming emotions and tensions of that change, into this film. That would not have been possible, if my way of making films would be anything other than what it is: Auteur work to it’s core. There are so many unexplainable and almost spiritual qualities in this art form that never cease to amaze me. Perhaps it has something to do with creating a collateral reality and living in it for such long periods of time, that the so-called actual reality around you starts to feel mute, vague, if not completely crazy. This is, I think the greatest gift art can give to the artist and to the spectator: You begin to see the reality for what it is. Just a silk paper thin page of an infinite, incredible, immensely complicated saga. This realisation, personally speaking, is the only form of hope I need or maybe, deserve. But going back to the life of W. I rewrote the script almost completely along the way. As what was unfolding around us was a catastrophe, not the making of a virus as such, but of fear, deep dissatisfaction and absence of significance, that suddenly seemed to come to the fore, as months went by in the beginning of 2020. The almost touchable essence of fear was something that could not be seen as anything other than a profound loss of meaning, that had been spreading quietly like a cancer among us, in us, for years. Maybe even longer. And as it is wisely said “There’s nothing to fear, but fear itself”, was exactly what many of us were indeed worried about. Where would all this fear take us? What are we willing to sacrifice to end this fear? There has been a huge fire in Europe and some of us are still pretending they didn’t see it happen. What ultimately is W? I think it’s a merciless meditation on words, ideas and symbols that use to have immense weight and meaning. That defined human history and had the power to change us. Words like “Revolution” and “Eternity”. They’ve become laughable, almost banal ideas. Not because they are, hell no, but because they don’t fit the over simplified way the human condition is being presented in the all consuming digital universe. Anything complex needs to be cancelled. Anything that upsets or involves a risk to be misunderstood. How can art survive in such an environment? Let alone the truth.W is most certainly a macabre trip, because the new reality that is slowly but surely being constructed around us like an invisible wall, seems nothing but macabre to me. Still, I’m waiting for it with a hunger of an animal, since what else is there?!There’s just no way an artist at this present time can afford to be nostalgic, sentimental or fearful. So even though W at times cries out for the past, it does so with the compassion of an executioner, and with a relentless search for a completely new, cinematic expression.
Genre: Psychological Drama
Autumn 2022
1 h 41 min
Director: Anna Eriksson
Script: Anna Eriksson
Producer: Matti Pyykkö
Production Company: Ihode Cursum Perficio Production
