“Although Ana Torfs’ work is not associated with any specific medium, viewing it put me in mind of a specific pictorial genre, namely the portrait. In many cases, all that you get to see is a human face, or people sitting at a table or posing in a small group. Not only is the genre lovingly practised, it is also systematically problematized. (...) How much, and more importantly, how little can be read in a face...
Ana Torfs took her cue for ‘Zyklus von Kleinigkeiten’ (Cycle of Trifles), a film about Beethoven’s final years, from one of the few direct sources we have about that period of his life - the daily notes written by his friends and acquaintances to communicate with the deaf composer. The film was largely made with non-professional actors. The images are in black and white and the actors don’t speak. From time to time, we see a thin smile, a tip of the head or an understanding glance, but that’s as far as it goes. Fragments from the written conversations are read out by off-screen voices. As you watch, you scrutinise the faces in search of more: interpretation, narrative or emotion. Yet the characters - which are so carefully sketched out for us in a conventional movie - pass before us without our being able to get hold of them, silently stringing together a series of trivia to create a chain of everyday concerns of the most prosaic kind.
The loneliness, desperation and wariness of the deaf man are transmitted on to the viewer. We sense great tension with the young nephew who lives with him, but never find out the details. Beethoven himself never appears. After all, he could talk and so does not feature in the exchanged notes. Beethoven exists entirely through the others, in a few of his witticisms and in the marvellous fragments of music that accompany the nature shots between the scenes. The one does not fit into the other, nor is any image formed.