Ponderance

The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Part 1 - The Moab Story

In George Clark's report "The Establishment of Form – A Report on the 57th Edinburgh International Film Festival", we find a tantalising look at Peter Greenaway's new multimedia uber-creation The Tulse Luper Suitcase in its first iteration, the film:

A project that lacks nothing in the way of ambition and visual invention is Peter Greenaway's The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Part 1 - The Moab Story (Peter Greenaway, Spain, Luxembourg, UK, Italy and Hungary, 2003). Greenaway's mammoth project is a self-declared manifesto for the possibilities of digital technology. This is Greenaway, the semiotician, constantly constructing and deconstructing cinematic convention with a barrage of visually and thematically stunning devices. The project's ambition is to test the form of the encyclopaedia, whose endless potential has been curtailed by various idiosyncratic systems. The project is subtitled “A Personnel History of Uranium” and spans 60 years from the discovery of Uranium in Colorado in 1928 to the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989. This is the first chapter in the history of Uranium. The project is designed to span media and for the film to be answerable to other forms, such as the planned 92 DVD's (92 is Uranium's atomic number and an essential structuring device). Each DVD will contain information on one of Tulse Luper's suitcase collections. There will also be books, a television series, a website (www.tulseluper.net) and another three films. The figure of Tulse Luper is an alter ego for Greenaway and has appeared sporadically throughout his work. The film is of staggering formal beauty and the fluidity of this language – incorporating talking head historians, introductions to individual suitcases, multiple actors in the same roles, etc. – gives a glimpse of the incredible potential of digital technology. Its real achievement is to ground its baroque histrionics in the 20th century and to incorporate personal as well as international history. In his recent work Greenaway seemed to be retreating from the world. Here he is stamping his mark on it.

I'm a huge Greenaway fan, and think Prospero's Books and The Pillow Book are two of the most technically inventive and engaging films ever made. I must confess, though, 8 1/2 Women left me a bit dazzed and confused, but Tulse Luper sounds absolutely amazing. I have no idea when Perth audiences will get to see it; I would hope that the Perth International Arts Festival would pick it up for the coming film season, but since the film season has become the cash cow for PIAF, I fear they may see Greenaway as a bit risky (they didn't, after all, pick up 8 1/2 Women). But I'm sure Luna will get it eventually ... and in the words of Big Kev, "I'm Excited!".