3d – Animation
Germany (2006)
10 min 33 sec
Idea and Animation: Susanne Wiegner
Speaker: Helmut Becker
This is a part of the space-literature project „telling space“, transforming writings into abstract, virtual spaces. This virtual space model was created for „Metamorphosis“ by Franz Kafka.
(One morning, Gregor Samsa wakes up, transfomed into a beetle, accompanied with the changing of sense, as taste, hearing, perception of space etc. Even he still feels like a human being, he is more and more treated like an animal, caged in his room, where he finally dies of injuries caused by his father).
The virtual space model is as well place of the acting as an image of the story itself. The rooms, exacly described by Franz Kafka are detached and located independant into the organic space structure. In the centre is Gregor’s room with the described furnitures, surrounded by the rooms of the other family members. The walls of the flat are transparent, so the furnitures casts their shadows on the skin of the „insect-den“. In this way the animation plays with the permanent fading of reality and fiction, similar to our remembrance.
The camera starts with the gradual dissection of the space situation, penetrates deeper into the
armour-like construction, where the rooms are located. In the further course of the acting the camera takes the perspective of the beetle and creeps along the wall, floor and ceiling.
In the end of the film, the family leaves the claustrophobic building.
To the film sequences one can hear text fragments of the story „Metamorphosis“.