Seeing Further
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
While travelling through the Great Alföld, the vast plain in south-eastern Hungary, Esther Kinsky stops in a small town near the Romanian border. Like many other things, the cinema, 'mozi' in Hungarian, has long since closed. Entranced by the decaying mozi, she soon embarks on the colossal task of reviving it, compelled by the irresistible magic of the cinema, a site rooted in ritual that is steadily disappearing. Beautifully translated by Caroline Schmidt, Seeing Further is a powerfully eloquent declaration of love to the cinema and the collective experience of watching by Esther Kinsky, one of Germany's most important contemporary writers.
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Kinsky (Rombo) delivers a discursive paean to the transformative power of cinema. The unnamed narrator begins by recounting a visit to Norway, where the "dramatic" alpine landscape made her feel like she was in a Carl Theodor Dreyer film. She then rewinds to her childhood, when she was haunted by the animated film Bambi and came to prefer the realism of "real movies," because of the relief offered by their endings ("The window of the screen into another world had to close"). As a young woman, an affection for Hungarian films compels the narrator to frequently visit Budapest, where she encounters a group of like-minded movie lovers who lost their modest movie house during WWII and helps them rebuild it. Kinsky includes plaintive black-and-white photos of the Budapest cinema and other landmarks mentioned in the text. Cinephiles and W.G. Sebald fans alike will devour this passion project.
