In Sink Down Mountain, Raise Up Valley (2015) von Brandenburg has staged a ‘film-performance’ that dramatises elements of the rituals, tools, dress, and song of the Saint-Simonian movement. The Saint-Simonian ideology was founded on the ideas of the utopian socialist Claude Henri de Rouvroy (1760-1825), who envisaged a future society based on the spirit of science and industry, where each individual would find fulfilment through the exercise of their productive powers in a hierarchical society that is overseen by technocrats. Following de Rouvroy’s death the late faction of the Saint-Simonian movement become akin to a church under the guidance of Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin (1796-1865) who followers called ‘supreme father’ or ‘Père’. As leader Père dispatched emissaries to Constantinople in search of his counterpoint a ‘woman messiah’ who would liberate and preside over their new religious order. Sink Down Mountain, Raise Up Valley follows a set of characters, including Père, wandering through the backstage and stage areas of The New Riga Theatre, performing to the lyrics of the film’s titular song, written by von Brandenburg and based on a 1830s Saint-Simonian folk song. The Saint-Simonian church dissipated following their futile search for a woman messiah; in Sink Down Mountain, Raise Up Valley the messiah woman appears in a poetic, dream-like sequence in the final emancipating moments of the film. Sink Down Mountain, Raise Up Valley is shot in black & white on 16mm film in one continuous take; as with most of von Brandenburg’s films when watching the performance unfold it is not always clear what temporal context we have landed in, however the black & white footage emphasises that it is outside of our time as a viewer.

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