Filmdienst
Excerpts from German review in FILMDIENST by Joseph Lederle, June 2011
Previously, Bateson’s work was known in the alternative and environmental circles in the academic milieu of the 80s. Bateson’s two most important written works, Steps to An Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature, were published by the … German publisher Suhrkamp. Surprisingly, it has taken 30 years since Bateson’s death in 1980 for a more popular understanding of his work. Gregory Bateson remains alive in his significant impact on systemic family therapy, and his influence on the works of Nikolas Luhmann and other systems theorists. But the body of Bateson’s work needed the cinematic “art of translation” of his youngest daughter, Nora Bateson, to save one of the most refreshing, unpretentious thinkers from oblivion and make the work more accessible in the present.
In her 60 minute film that is as personal as it is accessible, one encounters not a dreamer, but instead a funny, entertaining man who was notorious for his enigmatic questions and advised his students to read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland to learn something about human nature and the fundamental processes of evolution. This was no joke for Bateson, who was convinced that reality does not open itself through the analytical process of dissecting writing, but rather can be deduced through metaphorical and poetic language.
Long before the term “ecology” was fashionable, Bateson was driven by the question: “What are the structural reasons behind the destructive use of natural resources?” With the insight that “we” have lost the ability to recognize broad patterns, he presented his ideas to audiences not as “thesis” but instead circled around around the topic with paradoxical examples.
The film follows Bateson’s credo that the spirit that follows logic, causality and the preservation of the power needs to find balance in the realm of art and intuition. Nora Bateson does not present a standard biography but instead draws a quiet and exhilarating pastiche, which uses little animated sequences that show the content of the keywords that the film touches upon… even if it involves difficult epistemological questions. The central mantra of the tireless protagonist, who interpreted the wold as an infinite set of relational events, and focused on the context of things above their singular form, has thus found a congenial cinematic form.