According to the analysis of the ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, "wild thinking" describes rather fluid transitions between man and nature, everyday life and the spirit world, and life and death. Based on objects from the Ethnological Museum Berlin-Dahlem, the film attempts to bring this different worldview to life with the help of masks, cult objects, rituals and ethnographic film footage from America, Africa, Asia, Siberia and the South seas. It also seeks to reconstruct and explain their functionality within complex mythologies. Europe, too, has known such mythological and animistic traditions for millennia, which can be illustrated, for instance, through the cave art of the Ice Age, the Celts, or the reference to nature of the mystics and romantics. The film also asks how forms of "wild thinking" could broaden our spiritual horizons, especially today - in an age of the destruction of the natural world and the economic "compulsion to increase" (Hartmut Rosa). "A stimulating film of impressive scope. The wealth of information is enormous." (Tracks).
Documentary
1h 48min
16+
DE
The film clarifies - according to Claude Lévi-Strauss - the "wild thinking" of indigenous cultures based on masks, cult objects, and rituals.
According to the analysis of the ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, "wild thinking" describes rather fluid transitions between man and nature, everyday life and the spirit world, and life and death.
Based on objects from the Ethnological Museum Berlin-Dahlem, the film attempts to bring this different worldview to life with the help of masks, cult objects, rituals and ethnographic film footage from America, Africa, Asia, Siberia and the South seas. It also seeks to reconstruct and explain their functionality within complex mythologies.
Europe, too, has known such mythological and animistic traditions for millennia, which can be illustrated, for instance, through the cave art of the Ice Age, the Celts, or the reference to nature of the mystics and romantics. The film also asks how forms of "wild thinking" could broaden our spiritual horizons, especially today - in an age of the destruction of the natural world and the economic "compulsion to increase" (Hartmut Rosa).
"A stimulating film of impressive scope. The wealth of information is enormous." (Tracks).