Notes on an Appearance

David sends a postcard to his roommate Todd from Milan, saying Madeline is already settled in. Upon his return to the US, he visits his parents, is handed a cheque, reunites with Todd in Brooklyn, schedules job interviews. Then a shot of a side street, between tall buildings, without cars, David walks into frame, opera surges on the soundtrack, he walks further into the image until he’s no longer there. Todd and Madeline search for him across the city, between literary events, exhibition openings, one-night stands, coffee shop chat. Even before David disappeared, the paper trail he left behind kept flashing up on screen, the cheque, the boarding pass, diary entries, but other documents are now needed, identification photos, missing persons forms, the postcard from Milan; nothing helps. Before David disappeared, he was cataloguing the holdings of contentious dead philosopher Steven Taubes, who left behind traces of his own: videos of far-flung cities, recordings that talk of the death of politics, critical reassessments, rumours that a movement is growing. Dossiers should provide certainty, but they no longer do, how unnerving it is to realise that life is now the gaps. (Berlinale)