differently, Molussia is a collection of nine short chapters filmed on expired rolls of 16mm. These nine chapters are composed differently before each individual screening – creating 362,880 different arrangements.
The film weaves around excerpts from a novel written by Gunther Anders about an imagined totalitarian state known as Molussia. Short, anecdotal stories are sporadically narrated within the nine chapters, popping up after long periods of near silence. Each chapter shoots a different location, either industrial areas or scenes of breathtaking wilderness.
Visually, the film is stunning. The reels of film that have been shot in the ’00s look as though they are straight from the ’70s with a grainy, inconsistency to their quality – in some frames you can hardly make out the image that they portray. What really makes this film hard to commit to is the lack of narrative. Of course films don’t always have to follow a story, but with the minimal approach to dialogue it is sometimes hard not to let your eyes droop after watching the same scene for minutes on end.
