DIE HÜTTE

Die Hütte is based on an extract from the novel Alte Meister (Old Masters) by Thomas Bernhard. Among other things, the fragment tells of a small village (near Freiburg) in the Black Forest, where in 1922 Heidegger built a hut. This hut is still in the possession of the Heidegger family, but inaccessible to the public. The film might be seen as a portrait of this hut, including images of the surroundings, like for example those picturing Germany’s first ski slope.

Besides the presence of the hut – where Heidegger wrote Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) and entrenched himself just after WWII – and by means of a voice-over (Bernhards text), Heidegger’s character and philosophy, and the culture that nurtured both, are being ridiculed. Snug Germany, contemptible Austria, Black Forest Philosophy, kitsch literature, pseudo-intellectualism, petite-bourgeoisie, dilettantism and amateurism are some keywords with which this monologue is interlarded. In the long run, it’s the tension between at least three elements that makes up the film’s skeleton: Bernhards text; the same text in the form of a voice (as dramatised presence), and the filmed images — which only superficially indicate where the textual drama takes place, i.e. Heidegger’s Schwarzwaldhütte.