
American Passages
Documentary Film
Austria
2011
120 minutes
Subtitles: 
German
Credits
Producer
Ursula Wolschlager
Director
Ruth Beckermann
Cinematographer
Antoine Parouty, Lisa Rinzler
Editor
Dieter Pichler
Sound
Atanas Tcholakov, Matthew Dennis
A fragmented and haunting image of the US between a spirit of departure and hopelessness at the beginning of the Obama era, revolving around racism, the housing crisis, individualism and religion. Beckermann constructs an argument of contradictions that foreshadows current American politics and discovers only the detritus of the American Dream in all its perversity. What’s left is an amazed and curious collection of that which is still filmable. The US seem particularly well-adapted to the passage-like character of Beckermann’s works which take the liberty of letting people speak, not prejudices.
Patrick Holzapfel
Patrick Holzapfel