The Invisible Frame

Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton stars in this travelogue-like documentary about life after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Director and longtime friend Cynthia Beatt films Swinton biking in and around the German capital, offering occasional thoughts, but moving, for the most part, in silence past buildings, houses, parks, and forests. Interwoven are scenes from the same trip made with Swinton in 1988's Cycling the Frame, allowing Swinton to comment on the contrasts between then and now. At one point, for instance, she refers to the “manifestation of this ghost wall,” adding, “it felt so much more invisible [earlier] than it is now.” When she stops to chat with passersby, Swinton speaks in (subtitled) German, although she narrates in her native English. It takes a while to figure out where this is all going—if anywhere—because other than documenting the considerable miles Swinton logs on her bicycle, the film doesn't end up anyplace particularly interesting, although it does nicely highlight the surrounding German countryside. Swinton fans will surely appreciate her unflappable company and literary insights (she recites works by Robert Louis Stevenson, William Butler Yeats, and Anna Akhmatova), but The Invisible Frame isn't half as compelling as Swinton's works with filmmaker Lynn Hershman Leeson, who alternates between nonfiction (Strange Culture) and fiction (Teknolust, Conceiving Ada). Optional. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)