Cafetería, train station
Fonda de Francia
Street view
Square
Street view
Route
©David Mauas
all photos
«Perhaps
the first ever film noir intellectual historical film, Mauas´documentary
is at once beguiling and enlightening» Washington
Jewish Film Festival «David
Mauas is a good disciple [of Walter Benjamin]. Who Killed Walter Benjamin
is not just a documentary about this famous and unclassifiable thinker,
but, first, is a work done with a deep knowledge of the work and stylistic
virtuosity of Benjamin.
It is the product of an hybrid genre between pure
documentary and video art devices of which at times gets translated to
the display of the Benjamin´s narrative work.
Perhaps useless documentation
for historians and criminologists, but valuable for all lovers of the German
thinker and every student of communication, visual arts or philosophy.
Especially for those who meet these characteristics at once interested
in the manner of Benjamin, the interrelations and mutual fruition of all
these disciplines»Isaac Risco, Una extraña
muerte en Portbou«In
a documentary with airs of Mulholland Drive, the director David Mauas narrates
his personal investigation, sometimes obsessive, on the circumstances that
are surrounding the death of the German philosopher.
Many testimonies entwine,
from town neighbors to specialists, who reveal an evidence: it is not possible
to prove in an irrefutable way that Walter Benjamin commited suicide» Valèria
Gaillard, El Punt «Mauas takes the
camera and rolls and rolls. Lets speak those who had listen the story from
others, those who lived in that time and remember (…) Walter Benjamin
is always present in the film, although his image hardly appears. He lives
in others, in their memories or in their imagination…» Lola
Huete Machado, El Pais Semanal «The
result is a “film noir” that moves between a classic documentary
and the video art. In “Who killed Walter Benjamin…” not
only is reconstructed the death of the writer but also is recreated “the
scene of the crime”» La
Vanguardia «With persistence Mauas
seizes new relevant details from witnesses of that time which until now
has been ignored by the international Benjamin research» Bettina
Bremme, Die Tageszeitung «This film is
an event, because it reveals how the mysterious death of a German thinker
converts a little village of the Catalan Pyrenees to a crossroad of
European history» Gregor
Ziolkowski, Deutschland Radio«Portbou
is a place that reminds us of the death of one of the greatest philosophers
of the 20th century. It is also the perfect place to plumb the depths of
his thought. Visiting Passages, the monument created by Dani Karavan on
the hill that dominates the horizon is enough to understand the strength
that his memory acquires here. The visit becomes an unforgettable experience.
The same can be said of the film Who Killed Walter
Benjamin… by David Mauas.
This work of art, constructed with the rigor and sobriety of Claude Lanzmann,
exponentially multiplies the power of memory. Placing the inhabitants face
to face with their recollections of that German professor that took his
own life, according to some, or whose life was taken, according to others,
or that simply died; memories related to the civil war surface, imbuing
the very idea of memory with the moral and political dimension that it
deserves»Manuel Reyes Mate, El Periódico de Catalunya
Full press dossier (download pdf)