Inventory (Inventur - Metzstrasse 11)
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- Inventory (Inventur - Metzstrasse 11)
- 1975
- 16mm film transferred to digital, color, sound
- 8min, 56sec
In “Inventur – Metzstraße 11,” the residents of a Munich tenement—mostly foreigners—come in as though walking down an outdoor staircase and introduce themselves and their life situations to the viewers. With this minimal setting, Želimir Žilnik, strips the administrative term “inventory,” taking stock or a census, of its numerical and bureaucratic meaning. Although the position of the camera is fixed, as in a police situation, and each person identifies themselves by name, it is not the number of people that counts. This camera situation guarantees their individuality, because each person takes stock of their own situation in the Federal Republic of Germany. They decide for themselves how long they want to speak or what they want to say in front of the camera, also exhibiting embarrassment or pleasure in posing before the camera. All of them are performers of their own role. Žilnik provides them with the framework they need for it. He shot this short film in 1975 in Munich, which is only relevant to the extent that Metzstraße is in Germany. “Inventur – Metzstraße 11” is a film that paradigmatically shows property speculation in many large German cities. Formerly upper middle class residential areas are systematically turned into slums by being over-populated with guest worker families that usually pay highly inflated rents. Once the objects have been run down in this way, they can be sold as profitable office and condominium palaces. K.R.