Thursday 15 November 2012

Sven Werner

Sven Werner might be a film-maker, but he can't be accused of Hollywood decadence. Not only is he disarmingly cheerful when we meet outside his studio - apologising for keeping me waiting, even though I am early - he has a space above a fish shop. The aroma of tomorrow's dinner is stronger on the stairs than in his studio, but I am hoping that, when I interview him in ten years time of the eve of his first film as the exciting new director of the new Bond film, we'll get to be in an expensive hotel suite sniffing at exotic perfumes.

Tales of Magical Realism - Part 2 follows on from his piece in last year's Cryptic Nights programme. Part 1 featured a mysterious journey in a taxi: Part 2 goes deeper into the same territory. He's laid out the four machines that replace the single screen across the studio. An umbrella hangs from the rafters, Werner flips on a recording and we toast the success of his work with tiny bottles of malt whiskey. He's happy to let me have a secret preview, at least of the first three stages of Magical Realism. I refuse to watch the last scene, wanting to save something for the full performance. I then tell him that the woman's voice on the recording is very sexy.

He points out that the voice belongs to his girlfriend. I try to back-peddle but know I have gone too far.

Werner is more than a generous host: he has taken the energy of beat poetry, the loneliness and adventure of the open road and applied a mystery that is somewhere between Kafka and Sinbad. There is a romance in his story-telling, evocative of childhood journeys, alongside a sinister undertow. Characters appear, seduce and retreat. Objects take on vivid life. My preview allows me to see the clever mechanism he has rigged to create the illusion. For their simplicity, they present an immersive, disorientating illusion.

Sonica's remit, to support art that doesn't fall easily into genre, but has traces of music, performance, film or whatever other visual art trickery the artist enjoys, suits Werner's idiosyncratic cinematic imagination. He tells me that he has a film-script on the market, and that waiting for the film industry to develop it sent him back to Glasgow, where he began making the models that eventually became Tales. We toast the future success of the script, and he hooks me up the headphones.

Until 18 November, Tramway

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