REVIEW: DVD Release: Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

Film: Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow
Release date: 28th March 2011
Certificate: U
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Sophie Fiennes
Starring: Anselm Kiefer, Klaus Dermutz
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: France/Netherlands/UK

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow was shown at Cannes in 2010 in the Out Of Competition category. A documentary style film about the work of German artist Anselm Kiefer, this is British director Sophie Fiennes’ first work to be shown at Cannes, and it has widely received critical acclaim for its innovative approach.

Anselm Kiefer has made the decision to move to a derelict rural area in Barjac, France and undertake a large scale artistic project. Taking the ruins of an abandoned silk factory, Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow shows us Kiefer and his team creating a network of tunnels and cavernous rooms which have been filled with art work and sculpture.

Fiennes provides a thorough documenting of the site itself, panning through the different areas of the commandeered ruins in France. There is no narration or director’s commentary but an in depth visual examination of the area and plenty of footage of Kiefer and the artists at work on a series of large paintings and sculptures.

There is an opportunity to see the work being made at different stages throughout, intersected with more visual exposure. An interview with Kiefer is recorded providing some insight into his motivations. The film also offers the documentation of the different techniques used by Kiefer to create his art, such as firing techniques, the use of large cranes to haul lead structures and diggers to use the earth itself as a construct…


The human emotion usually driving a film is distinctly hidden in this documentary style piece. Instead, human emotion and dialogue have been mostly replaced by the emotion invoked by art and architecture, which has an unsettling effect. The long opening shots exploring the expansive constructions and a lack of a discussion of what is happening until the interview with Kiefer allow the viewer to develop their own emotional reaction to what is unfolding, and to draw their own conclusions with little direction from either Kiefer or Fiennes.

The chilling music would suggest that Fiennes is leaning towards an almost sci-fi slant, with the collection of sculptures and art coming across as an industrial Atlantis, abandoned and devoid of human touch until we see the artists at work. The impression is one of following a camera as someone takes a tour around a preserved site of historic interest.

Kiefer and his team are working on epically sized sculptures, such as the rectangular construct of a sea with a large book suspended top centre. The contrast between the human artists and the soulless overgrown constructions is striking. The predominant colour seen in this film is of the heavy structures in greys and metallic shades, feeling cold and again something to project feelings onto rather than take warmth or feeling from. By being able to see how Kiefer works and amends his vision of each work of art we are drawn into life as an artist, because usually as spectators we would just see the finished piece. This involves the viewer on a deeper level, and often leads to introspective thought as to what art means to the individual.

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow is very much a visual film. In the interview with Kiefer he describes his art as linked to scientific and religious viewpoints on Creationism and how he sees art as a beauty which fills the void of a lack of knowledge about the creation of the world we live in. This rhetoric, although abstract and moving, does not inform the viewer as to the purpose for the works once Kiefer and his fellow artists have left. There is no mention of this becoming either an inhabited or a public exhibit, which only serves to increase the curiosity about this artist and the project.

In one respect it can be quite draining to spend the duration of the film with a series of mostly visual images with which to guide your thoughts. This requires a heightened conceptual awareness throughout, and depending on the viewer’s temperament, there are no fixed boundaries to stop your imagination wandering as far as you desire, or, of course, being entirely bored. Due to the brief nature of the interview with Kiefer, the thematic intentions of the film are also left open. The idea of the destruction of humanity is hinted at through the fact that these buildings will outlive humanity, as well as the fact that no human purpose, even on an artistic basis, is made clear. The title itself could infer that this construction could be abandoned until grass grows over it, perhaps for a new generation to come across it and discover it.


Sophie Fiennes is mostly known for elusive art house pieces, and this has been her first well received film at Cannes. Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow displays a masterful use of subtlety, the use of hidden direction to give the viewer a truly subjective experience. It gives the sense of having witnessed the work in person, delivering a similar feeling as having visited an art gallery, as you are required to analyse each new scene with your own perceptions and interpretations forming the basis of your enjoyment of the film. It is a refreshing change. AT