Peter Nestler: 9 Films 1962-2009 2 x DVD9
on September 23rd, 2020 at 16:54
Admired by the likes of Jean-Marie Straub and Harun Farocki, Peter Nestler was one of the most important filmmakers to emerge from postwar Germany. From his early films about the changing realities of rural and industrial areas in Germany and the UK, to his work for Swedish television, Nestler has remained a precise observer of the poetry and politics of labor, crafting meticulous portraits of industrial processes, working conditions, and workers themselves, as well as the background of struggle and oppression against which the era’s proletariat toiled. A vigorous yet nuanced opponent of fascism, an excavator of lost histories and a masterful formalist whose works are rich with a materiality all their own, Nestler has spent five decades chronicling how things get made, whether in a factory or at the level of ideology.
Nestler’s films are beyond documentaries. He is not engaging in mere journalism. Nor are these films essays, whereby Nestler expounds on working class life or the ravishing changes of industry.
Rather, Nestler is a kind of poet connecting the dots between environmental shifts and the resilience of human beings. Whether it is the innocence of schoolchildren, or the contemplative suffering of community elders, Nestler presents us with the enduring joy of the human heart.
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