The Galactical North Pole Lies in the Hair of Berenice
The range of symbols is manifold and multi-layered, it is a film that utilises many fades, dissolves and double exposures. The "Galactic Northpole"- a fiction of astronomy, an assertion; Berenice had sacrificed her hair on the alter of a goddess in order to gain her approval. One becomes the victim of others - yet one also becomes a victim of oneself.
Actaeon, the hunter, watches Artemis, the huntress while bathing. He is being transformed at the same time into a stag - eventually hunted down by Artemis and his own dogs. (This myth is interpreted as a matriarchal cycle by Graves and Goettner-Abendroth.)
Der Galaktische Nordpol liegt im Haar der Berenice is a cyclical, erotic story: spring, summer, fall, and winter; youth, passionate midlife, old age and death; the colours white, red and black. The instincts of self-preservation: eating, drinking, sex and agression. Desire for power. Lust to sacrifice and be sacrificed. Artemis may only comprehend and dominate Actaeon, who is as independent as she is herself - by his instincts (the dogs, that lacerate him), only if she is able to tranform him into an animal (a stag). She kills him in the end and takes him to the underworld (le petit mort (French) = the orgasm).
(Moucle Blackout)
Der Galaktische Nordpol liegt im Haar der Berenice
1990
Austria
14 min