RE:Wildling | Film by Wolfgang Lehmann

RE:Wildling | Music by Ying Wang | Film by Wolfgang Lehmann | Kommnuales Kino Freiburg

RE:WILDING is a joint production of Berlin based composer Ying Wang and Stockholm based filmmaker Wolfgang Lehmann.

Ying Wang has retained an almost childlike joy in mimesis. Her music is quite direct, always revealing itself immediately. It does not hide behind elaborate structures. One can always take it literally. That is what is so refreshing about it. In RE:WILDING, the wildness of the music and images is that of life itself. A wildness of curiosity, not fear. What some deemed uncomfortable because of its uncontrollable nature, becomes a new comfortable normality in her piece. In RE:WILDING, jungle and nature are the utopian “other place”. No Utopia is welcoming at first. All that is new, that is unfamiliar, carries moments of irritation and rejection. Direct exposure to the sounds and images – to the “other” – makes them familiar, until one feels embedded and part of it. Like Mahler in his 3rd symphony, Wang is not mapping any specific nature environments, but rather creates one of her own. In her world whales wander tropical highlands.

Like a sudden weather change, Wolfgang Lehmann’s images appear out of the dark, while the music gradually reaches out into the wild. Material re-appears several times in both music and images. Those repetitions and variations aim for awareness on how its surrounding and one’s own mindset changed since their last appearance. Like a listener who is engaging with the music, Lehmann’s images allow the music to unfold in new paths. By following and articulating associations of his own, the images are leading us to a synthetic experience. Lehmann’s images are observing the musical jungle, they don’t cut into it, nor are they commenting counterpoint to the music. Like Wang’s music, his images, despite their origin, don’t imitate nature, but are aiming as well towards something “other”. They are themselves expression of this free wildness. They pulsate and breathe with the music. And like the music, they don’t need to be deciphered. They are trigger for new associations and memories instead. Ying Wang and Wolfgang Lehmann are not guides through the wildness – they enable the wildness by asking for your associations to grow wildly.

further screening: 11.10.22, 19h30, Kommunales Kino, Freiburg