19. UNDER|DOX 10-16 OKT

Berlin, 1974. 32-year-old stage director Walter Asmus assists 68-year-old Samuel Beckett with his first personal production of ”Waiting for Godot”. Soon, their professional understanding turns into a friendship that will last until the writer’s death.

It is safe to say that this film is the story of that friendship. It does so in pure Declan Clarke fashion, in his usual way: with still shots, in 16mm, in the present tense, articulating visual and sound descriptions of the places, presentation of archival material, and objective report of facts. The archives belong to Asmus: postcards from Beckett, scripts of the plays they staged together with their annotations, etc. The locations are places Beckett frequently visited during his stays in Berlin or Stuttgart: studios, restaurants, parks. Sobriety, factuality – the world as seen by Declan Clarke is Beckettian.
And if the film begins in the Wicklow mountains and ends on the stage of Dublin’s Gate Theatre, it is because this exercise in admiration is also, despite its author, quite an indirect self-portrait. With great decency and restraint. “Hold back!” Just like Walter Asmus, Declan Clarke has learned his lesson from the great Sam. – Cyril Neyrat, FID Marseille