Les avatars de la mort dEmpédocle

In the summer of 1986 Danièle Huillet and JeanMarie Straub were working in the park of an old Sicilian mansion and in a clearing at the foot of Mount Etna shooting Der Tod des Empedokles Assistant cameraman JeanPaul Toraille toyed around so to speak with his first video camera filming the daily work on the set Now 24 years later he was joined by JeanMarie Straub in editing the material into a film Anyone who expected the shooting of Les Avatars de la mort dEmpédocle to be an austere affair an exercise entirely devoid of humour or a Straubian tour de force is proven wrong so much lightness joy concentration spells of waiting for the sun to come out and even proper slapstick in between is hard to find