The Tree of Life

Johann Sebastian Bach is not only one of the greatest composers of all time, but perhaps also the most mysterious. Who was this inconspicuous man from Thuringia, whose music still deeply touches people from all over the world?

A historical analysis of how groups such as the Nazi’s may use language, symbols, and religious connotation in order to come to power. It raises questions that deserve in depth analysis and consideration. Questions include: Where do legends expand our thinking and where do they bury it? When does spiritual pursuit suddenly turn into fanaticism and violence? Last, have we as a society learned from our past, and if so have forgotten the lessons of the 20th Century? Are we now embarking on a new level only to learn the same old lessons about humanity again? In addressing these questions we are taken into the back drop of the history of Germany beginning in the late 1800’s through the late 20th Century at the eve of the 21st. “A society that does not take archetypes, myths, and symbols seriously will possibly be jumped by them from behind.”

The Swiss painter Paul Klee (1879-1940), who believed his ancestors came from North Africa, traveled to Egypt in 1928. He visited Tunesia in 1914, together with August Macke. The light and colors there influenced him a lot. German documentary filmmaker Rüdiger Sünner travels through Egypt with Klee's diary in his luggage. This film essay shows Klee's paintings, sepia toned filmed sequences of early 1990s Egypt, and tells of old Egyptian myths (Osiris and his adventures in the underworld) from the Book of the Dead, stories that deeply inspired Paul Klee.

In lots of myth, a hero must undergo a "Nachtmeerfahrt" in which he encounter mysterious creatures and dangerous events. The psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), himself made such an expedition to survey the world of symbols and archetypes, asking about their relevance for our lives. How do "Nachtmeerfahrten" appear today? Are they dangerous in some ways and which potential do they have? What are our spirits ("anima") and shadows telling us thereby? Does the imagines of our subconsciousness contain spiritual messages? This is a filmic journey to the biography of C. G. Jung and to the mighty world of myths, dreams and symbols.

Early German Romanticism was not only an era of great poetry, but also developed a spiritual world view that anticipated much of what people today seek in esotericism, shamanism and Far Eastern religion: the combination of thought and intuition, reason and emotion, science and religion, as well as a view of nature as a living organism that cannot be understood solely through rational dissection. In artistic independence, the early Romantics developed highly individual forms of spirituality that have lost none of their fascination and inspiring power to this day. With texts by Hölderlin, Novalis, Goethe, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and others, we travel to magical landscapes in Germany to explore this side of European intellectual history that has been little illuminated to date.

Essay film about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926).

Art and spirituality in the life of Joseph Beuys.