Trojans

"Trojans" is my first short film, a silent movie, inspired by the age of Expressionism, and accompanied by the live improvisation of the violinist Roland Satterwhite.

The boundless mobility of modernity confronts us with new challenges. In times characterized by a constant flood of information, personal ties should actually serve as an anchor of stability. But in fact, the ubiquitous culture clash in the age of communication often overwhelms us, and our relationships are characterized by the same superficial restlessness that defines our daily lives. In this way, abysses quickly emerge: the Trojan in all of us.

Each of the protagonists in this film reveals another fatal form of inability to relate. Leonard is a blender, status symbols are more important to him than morality. Just after promising his partner a common future, he impregnates his affair, who could be his daughter, marries her and does not even consider it necessary to explain himself to his ex-partner. Whatever Eva may see in Leonard - he possibly just took advantage of her to recover from his a little too demanding girl-friend.

Marcela`s nature is characterized by a tendency to excessiveness. Although her passionate devotion is absolutely authentic, if her wishes cannot be longer realized, she makes her injured sense of honor the measure of all things. So she transforms into a sadistic avenging angel, who does not even hesitate to declare an innocent girl the mortal enemy, and Eva, who is too good faithful to her windy husband, becomes her maximally tragic, but grateful victim.

Even Marcela`s servant, the personified tool of evil, who seems to have sprung from an old movie, or Eva`s tradition and status conscious father, play their roles on the way into the disaster. Leonard`s casual reaction to the patriarch`s admonitory finger-wagging ("You can bet your life on that!") is not only a hidden clue to the film's dramatic punchline, but also to Leonard's exaggerated self-esteem. When it, shortly thereafter, comes down to saving his wife from mischief, he completely fails.

At the end, all persons involved, if they have not died, stand before the shards of their existence. But this pessimistic outlook is broken by two images of the final sequence: Leonard recognizes himself in an infinite mirror, and Marcela's triumphant laughter in the face of the tragedy turns into unrestrained grief, from which genuine compassion speaks.

So the point of the story is not the fight between good and evil, but the appeal to leave our matrix, to learn how to look at things from different perspectives, to overcome our selfishness and false pride, to become more pragmatic, and to explore - based on a common understanding of solidarity - intersections and synergies between different life designs.