Story of Night

Clemens Klopfenstein composed this experimental ode to the city in 1979, in the same decade when city dwellers were moving out en masse to the suburbs. He filmed in no fewer than 150 urban centers, from Istanbul to Dublin, and from Helsinki to Rome. And he did so not during the daylight hours that mercilessly expose the decline and depopulation of shrinking cities, but under the cloak of night. This is when the urban environment appears most ghostly, with empty offices and residences calmly illuminated by buzzing streetlamps. Litter tumbles across the screen as a couple hurries home along a deserted sidewalk. A siren sounds, and in the distance a car engine turns over. Nighttime is clearly no time for people. Wherever human activity is to be found – in smoky drinking dens or at religious processions with fireworks and prayers – it resembles some kind of exorcism. Story of Night is a visual poem without narrative and with the minimum of camera movement. Klopfenstein captures the essence of the city through the interaction between humanity and the landscape it made. That essence is to be found not in the architectural hardware, but in the city dwellers who bring their surroundings to life and make it what it is.