At Swim-Two-Birds ( In Schwimmen-Zwei-Vögel ) ( At Swim 2 Birds )

At Swim-Two-Birds (DVD) (*)

~~$24.99~~ $21.98

Original Title: In Schwimmen-Zwei-Vögel
Alternate Title: At Swim 2 Birds
Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
German ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Germany ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
86 min + 39 min extras

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (1.78:1)

Special Features:
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1997 and produced in:
Austria ( Germany, Central Europe )

Directed By:
Kurt Palm

Written By:
Flann O'Brien
Kurt Palm

Actors:
Andreas Sobik ..... Paul Shanahan / Shorty Andrews
Renato Uz ..... Antony Lamont / Slug Willard
Andreas Karner ..... Dermot Trellis
Johannes Friesinger ..... Pooka MacPhellimey
Karl Ferdinand Kratzl ..... John Furriskey
Stefan Wieland ..... Sweeny
Ernst Wolzenburg ..... Jem Casey
Harry Rowohlt ..... Finn Mac Cool
Werner Wultsch ..... Bran
Hermann Scheidleder ..... Uncle
Andreas Lust ..... Brinsley
Kathy Tanner-Weidhofer ..... Peggy
Nicholas Ofczarek ..... Orlick
Wolfgang Bauer ..... William Tracy
Stefan Weber ..... Red Kiersay

Synopsis:

The student Bran who lives at his uncle's maintaining a constant quarrel with the same, writes on a novel with different beginnings. For this purpose he invents the devil Pooka MacPhellimey, the villainous John Furriskey and the legendary Old-Irish hero Finn Mac Cool. But John Furriskey himself is the creation of another character invented by Bran called Dermot Trellis. The same Trellis, himself working on a novel, forces all the characters created by him to live in the Red Swan Hotel and do whatever he likes them to do. Bran develops an additional subplot around the devil Pooka MacPhellimey, who is visited by a Good Fairy learning from her that soon a child shall be born to Dermot Trellis at the Red Swan Hotel, a child the fairy wants to bless with her positive powers. Hearing that, Pooka as well sets off for the Red Swan Hotel to plant the seed of evil into newly-born Orlick's heart. On their ramblings through the forests Pooka and the Good Fairy meet the drovers Shorty Andrews and Slug Willard and working class poet Jem Casey. The group of four is later joined by mad King Sweeney. After a two days journey the company arrives at the Red Swan Hotel. To kill the time waiting for the child to be born, the group engages in a game of poker the outcome of which gives the narrative course an unexpected turn …

Austrian avant-garde theatre director Kurt Palm adaption of Flann O'Brien's beer-soaked, brilliantly funny, modernist masterpiece for the screen. The story that revolves around Kurt Palm's first film is not easily told: A writer reports of his efforts to start a novel. In it, characters, who don't exactly fit together, meet each other and have a life of their own from the beginning.
Everything about this film, you could say, is 'bigger than life': Harry Rowohlt - a perfect choice as a translator for O'Brien - , who gives this story a kind of monumentality; the strange music of Chorno Popp, which gives something phantastic to every trivial plot-twist; or the requisites of Ursula Huebner, who develops a love for the bizarre detail in the desolate life-dreams of this movie's protagonists. From a costume film Palm stumbles into a lower-austrian western movie, and from there, among others, into a cheap splatter movie.

This product was added to our catalog on Saturday 24 November, 2012.