GUT

 

photo: Mara von Kummer

Just caught up with GUT, the 3-part series which aired in Germany last year. Made by and about music legend Gudrun Gut, it is a fascinating portrait of the artist as country Frau. Once I stopped thinking of it as a documentary and more as experimental film I quite enjoyed it. 

Gut's rural home in Uckermark is the setting for the programmes, with her resplendent in overalls and sometimes wellies, striding around her property collecting apples, followed by cats (not clear how many there were) in what looks like high summer. It is a gorgeous setting, perfect for reflecting on a life in music and much more. 

Each of the three episodes has a theme, seemingly plucked from the aether: the blank page, Mmmmm and everyday life. Why these when so many others could have worked? No idea. Perhaps that was Gut's whimsy. 

But these do give the viewer a chance to hear some choice anecdotes and witness visits by musical collaborators Manon Pepita and Bettina Köster (online) from previous bands, as well as Monika Werkstatt artists Pilocka Krach and Midori Harano, who rock up and twiddle some knobs in the outdoors  in the final episode before everyone sits down for a fish supper, courtesy of Gut's visit to a fish farm earlier on. Yes, really.

It's quite eccentric in tone, with a lot of visual flourishes, such as turning the green leaves pink or setting Gut and her partner Thomas adrift on a lake with an abnormally large moon shining down on them. I liked that it was not just a talking heads profile. 

She mentions a possible second series set in Berlin, so it will be fun to see what outfit she chooses as she speeds around the metropolis on her bicycle.