Sad-Is-Fiction (1969)

Sad-is-fiction, Fredi M. Murer’s third artist film, takes as its subject the Zurich-based painter and poet Alex Sadkowsky. “Modern man leans neither to the right nor to the left; he just keeps walking” runs the start of the programmatic introduction – and, for the rest of the film, Sadkowsky does just that. He wanders through aeroplanes and through London, and leaps across rocky landscapes. Whenever he feels lonely, he carries with him an “animal metaphysicum”, which originated in his paintings. Sad-is-fiction portrays Sadkowsky as a visionary dreamer who – although he is in fact a father, artist, lover and, above all, a man with, to put it mildly, a gift of the gab – resists being pigeonholed in any way. In Sad-is-fiction,Murer works for the first time with direct sound and, for the first time, employs a colleague in the shape of cameraman Fritz E. Maeder.