Experimental fiction overtly philosophising about the repressiveness of political, social and media orders and the human condition in the modern, urban world. Language: German English title: INSIDE AND OUTSIDE Titles: 'drinnen und draussen' (inside and outside)_ 'ein film von richard woolley' (a film by richard woolley) Inside a shop labelled 'tobacconist,' a man is playing classical music on a piano. The camera pans around the room, revealing stacks and...

Experimental fiction overtly philosophising about the repressiveness of political, social and media orders and the human condition in the modern, urban world. Language: German English title: INSIDE AND OUTSIDE Titles: 'drinnen und draussen' (inside and outside)_ 'ein film von richard woolley' (a film by richard woolley) Inside a shop labelled 'tobacconist,' a man is playing classical music on a piano. The camera pans around the room, revealing stacks and shelves of books, an artistic print of a nude woman, and a picture of Karl Marx. It looks out the window, zooming in on the Coca-Cola advert at a restaurant across the street. When it zooms out again, a Man and a Woman have appeared in silhouette, sitting in chairs at the shop's desk. As the lights come up on each one in turn, they come to life and begin to examine the books at the desk. While the Pianist, foregrounding the artificiality of non-diegetic music, goes in and out of the shop several times and occasionally butters bread on his keyboard, the Man and Woman remain within the confines of the shop and discuss their place in the world and in modern society. Each conversation in the film subscribes to a different generic style - documentary, advert, love story, etc. Over the course of the film, numerous people, including children, pass by the windows of the shop; they sometimes look in, but they never come inside. The Man and Woman in the shop complain that they are 'being watched' and lament the lonely and 'anonymous sterility' of the industrial landscape and the consumerism and competition they feel encouraged to embrace. As the Man describes the pollution brought by factories and the 'urban motorway,' Woolley cuts to the same shot of the overpass at Kniephofstrasse that dominates his 1974 film of the same name. With ironic confidence, the Man and Woman turn and directly address the camera and advertise the commodity, 'love,' that will 'make your family the perfect family' and the 'common objective' that 'the Party' uses to soothe the loneliness of its members. The Man and Woman discuss how their love makes them 'self-contained' and protects them the world outside, which they perceive as bleak and unfeeling: 'We have no need of other people.' But as they begin to read more books aloud to one another, the Man and Woman discover texts that expose their preconceptions of self-sufficient love and family as social constructs encouraged by the repressive governments of both the Communist and Capitalist systems. These governments perpetuate their subjects' fear of a 'transient' and 'pointless' existence and employ ideologies that comfort that fear by providing a structured, mechanical lifestyle guaranteed to go on and on while lives begin and end. The Man reads that 'revolution governments' like the Communism of the East reinforce the same bourgeois attitudes as their predecessors, and he goes out the door. The Woman reads that the real revolution is about the individual living in the now, and she leaves, too. Outside, the Man and Woman join a group of people, including the Pianist, congregating outside the shop and interact with children and adults alike. Ending Titles: m?dchen: ulrike pohl junge: wolfgang w. m?ller pianist: theo hardtmann kamera: helmut wietz ton: klaus schr?der assistenz: ulrike hentrich wimmers buch und regie: richard woolley berlin 1974