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Schneewittchen<\/em><\/a>, a film by Stanley Schtinter based on a text by Robert Walser<\/a>, opens with a shot of a man in black lying in a field of snow, supine, one arm thrown out. The scene emulates photographs taken on Christmas Day 1956, when Walser left the asylum where he had spent 23 years to go for a walk, never to return. The images have inspired many reconstructions. The one in Schneewittchen<\/em> has the director playing the writer. Not everyone who came to the film\u2019s UK premiere at the BFI last month realised that Schtinter was in it.<\/p>\n The screenplay \u2013 a dramolette written by Walser in 1901, translated<\/a> by Daniele Pantano and James Reidel as Snow White<\/em> \u2013 is a Freudian sequel to the eponymous fairy tale. \u2018I\u2019m very much dead,\u2019 the heroine (played by Stacy Martin) announces early on, annoyed at having been revived. Then, rather than condemning her stepmother, Snow White asks for her forgiveness. The Queen (Julie Christie) assumes this is \u2018just a joke, isn\u2019t that right?\u2019 The Hunter (Hanns Zischler) believes no crime has been committed: \u2018The poison apple isn\u2019t true.\/The lie that says so is poison.\u2019 The Prince (Toby Jones) is torn between his frigid bride and the older woman, who rejects him: \u2018Such love, ah, that doesn\u2019t suit me.\u2019 The dialogue is punctuated by peals of thunder, with static crackling in the background (the sound design is by Joshua Bonnetta).<\/p>\n As well as the tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, the story evokes another German fable, \u2018Der Freisch\u00fctz\u2019, adapted for the stage in 1990 by Robert Wilson, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs as The Black Rider<\/em>. The Gothic horrors \u2013 snow, violence, madness \u2013 are all present in Walser\u2019s plot, but there is enough comedy in it to make the scary funny.<\/p>\n If the screening was a joke, not everyone got it. When the lights came on, one man rushed out of the auditorium, muttering: \u2018Such rubbish!\u2019 Most of us, however, stayed for the Q&A. We learned that the film (with cinematography by Sean Price Williams) is a \u2018shot-for-shot remake\u2019 of Jo\u00e3o C\u00e9sar Monteiro\u2019s Branca de Neve<\/em> (2000). (That wasn\u2019t the first time Walser\u2019s play was performed: there were theatre productions in the 1970s and an opera by Heinz Holliger in 1998.) Schtinter described his work as an \u2018Americanisation\u2019 of Monteiro\u2019s, in which \u2018the sky is bluer, the black is blacker\u2019.<\/p>\n One viewer asked whether using 35mm film meant that the black could have been made blacker still. A discussion ensued, leading to the conclusion that \u2018black is a lie.\u2019 Another member of the audience wondered if the degradation of the film \u2013 missing frames, scratches \u2013 was deliberate. This prompted comparisons between digital media and analogue \u2018living matter\u2019.<\/p>\n Someone began his question: \u2018I wasn\u2019t sure if you were having me on \u2026\u2019 Many of us felt the same way, but scepticism gave way to laughter when Schtinter suggested that Schneewittchen<\/em> could spell the end of filmmaking \u2018in this hyper-capitalised culture\u2019. His appearance in the opening sequence was nothing to do with the \u2018death of the author\u2019 and everything to do with the production being \u2018less low-budget than anti-budget\u2019. The film \u2018will never be available for home viewing, streaming or download\u2019, but it will be shown in cinemas in the UK, US and Europe over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n In the programme notes Schtinter talks of \u2018the banality and self-service of visual kultur\u2019. A prankster<\/a> and provocateur<\/a>, he draws on various avant-garde traditions to create his own art brand (complete with merch; a \u2018snow shirt\u2019 costs \u20ac50). He hasn\u2019t yet published a manifesto, though a few years ago he produced Important Books<\/em>\u00a0(or, Manifestos Read by Children)<\/em><\/a>, audio recordings of 86 texts including The Communist Manifesto<\/em>, Auto-Destructive Art<\/em><\/a>, Wear Sunscreen<\/em> and two Dada manifestos.<\/p>\n Viewers can make their own minds up how seriously to take Schneewittchen<\/em>. We are also free to choose our own light-to-darkness ratio. In that we could be guided by Walser, who wrote in his essay \u2018The Theatre, a Dream\u2019 (1907, translated<\/a> by Susan Bernofsky): \u2018We are so glad in dark, meditative holes.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n