The Mystery of Oberwald

Director:  Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Monica Vitti, Paolo Bonacelli, Franco Branciaroli
Italy, 129’, 1981, color

Italian with Turkish subtitles

Intrigued by the possibilities presented by the then-new format of video, Antonioni made this experimental work, based on the Jean Cocteau drama The Two-Headed Eagle and starring a regal Monica Vitti. “Respect the etiquette, the ceremonial,” notes a somber character in the story of a queen, trapped in self-exile in a crumbling castle, and the poet/assassin she falls in love with. At times Antonioni stays true to this injunction, lovingly dwelling on every impossibly decorative costume, set, and theatrical pronouncement as if paying homage to his compatriot Visconti. At other times, as if expressing the longings of Vitti’s queen, Antonioni willfully destabilizes the narrative ceremony, using his new technological tools to experiment with color shifts, foregrounded imagery, and other dizzying visual techniques. For Antonioni, video represented “a new world of cinema . . . using color as a narrative, poetic means . . . with absolute faithfulness, or, if so desired, with absolute falseness.”

Story of a Love Affair

Story of a Love Affair

Red Desert

Red Desert

Zabriskie Point

Zabriskie Point

Identification of a Woman

Identification of a Woman

L’Avventura

L’Avventura

Blow-Up

Blow-Up

The Mystery of Oberwald

The Mystery of Oberwald

Shorts

Shorts

Ideology

Ideology

Pera Museum’s  Cold Front from the Balkans exhibition curated by Ali Akay and Alenka Gregorič brings together contemporary artists from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia. 

The Success of an Artist

The Success of an Artist

Pera Museum presents an exhibition of French artist Félix Ziem, one of the most original landscape painters of the 19th century. The exhibition Wanderer on the Sea of Light presents Ziem as an artist who left his mark on 19th century painting and who is mostly known for his paintings of Istanbul and Venice, where the city and the sea are intertwined.

Mersad Berber

Mersad Berber

Mersad Berber was born in Bosanski Petrovac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on January 1st. He was the first son of Muhammed Berber and Sadika Berber, a well-known weaver and embroiderer. A year later, the family moved to Banja Luka after the city had suffered damage from the World War II.