Uliisses (1992)

Uliisses is a Homeric journey through the history of cinema. Its theme is based on the mythological Odysseus of Homer, the James Joyce's Ulysses, and the synthetic figure, Telemach/Phil, from the 24-hour-long piece The Warp by Neil Oram. Werner Nekes combines these figures, and he shows their stories. His central theme, however, is visual language in of itself: Odysseus/Bloom is transformed into Uli the Photographer, Penelope/Molly into his model and Telemach/Stephen into Phil, who begins his Telemachia.



The object of the odyssey is pictorial language as such: learning to see and wanting to see. It ranges from cinematographic archaeology to playful innovations of the latest kind.
There is no film technique that does not occur in this movie. Uliisses requires attentive viewing. The film's details disclose themselves only after one has seen it several times.
This short is an attempt to replicate in film some of the stylistic and technical innovations of Joyce's Ulysses, offering an anthology of cinematic techniques developed since the medium's inception.