Untitled

"I just want to travel around the world for a year, filming everything that comes my way," says Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger at the beginning of Untitled. The kaleidoscopic result takes us from the Balkans to Italy, northwest Africa and the coast of Liberia, where Glawogger died of malaria. The film was completed by his usual editor Monika Willi, using images and texts he recorded and wrote during the trip. As viewers, this film gives us a sensation of being in an open train car while Glawogger’s world passes by. A voice-over, provided by Irish actress Fiona Shaw, tells the fictional story of a man on the run, looking for a place in which to disappear. Glawogger shares pointed observations of the resilience of our linguistic skills, the urge to survive seen in chickens and how to say goodbye. The variety of locations, impressions and stories draw us in, but are also alienating. Untitled is a film without a theme: like its maker, we set off on a journey to an unknown destination. A sublime swan song.