Film: Manifesto

Cate Blanchett times thirteen, who virtuostically brings to life fragments of famous 20th-century art manifestos - from Claes Oldenburg to Dogma - in Manifesto. Mostly filmed in architectural monuments around Berlin.

The film, by the German artist, filmmaker and photographer Julian Rosefeldt and based on his multi-screen film installation of the same name, is a tour de force in which leading ideas about art and society are arranged in convenient segments.

One of the most exciting films in recent years is a manifesto of manifestos. Karl Marx, Lars von Trier, Kazimir Malevich, Jim Jarmusch: there is just a selection from the lineup of "manifestoers" in this funny, inflammatory, sombre and cheerful film.

Rosefeldt has Blanchett sublimely play thirteen very diverse roles. She shines as a crane operator, a bored rock singer, a newsreader, a hobo and a housewife, to name a few. In these roles she quotes from all kinds of manifestos, intercut with fabulous shots from in and around Berlin. You'll encounter a whole pile of -isms.

This film is in English with Dutch subtitles.


★★★★ De Filmkrant
"Cate Blanchett times thirteen. This is Manifesto's secret weapon. The best actress of our era times thirteen. Manifesto is an ambitious, provocative and, in the great tradition of manifesto writers, explosive project by the German artist Julian Rosefeldt."

★★★★ De Volkskrant
"Manifesto is an homage as much to the unstoppable forces of change in art as to Blanchett's genius."

★★★★ VPRO/Cinema.nl
"As alive, inspiring, pompous, affected, topical, poetic, angry, energized, theatrical, contradictory, humorous and elusive as art itself."