Heiner Müller is one of the most interesting dramaturges of the twentieth century. Born in 1929, his biography was marked by the Shoah, East Germany, and the West Germany of the 1990s. Dominik Barbier’s film portrait refers to the 1977 play Die Hamletmaschine.
It can be understood as a documentary that does not primarily present Heiner Müller’s biography but rather the levels of influence between the artistic work and the reference to time that Müller created. Barbier recontextualizes the historical positions by presenting them on different levels of media within the film: text, image, and sound. Only via writing do the ephemeral moments, from interviews to stage performance, obtain a monumental legibility.
