 What's up guys, this is Theron, and tonight we're taking another dive into the para-watch wiki. Tonight's thread was started by user Ideological Imbrolio on Halloween 2018. It's called Abbasin Height. Let's begin. The recent disappearance of Basil Oddinger and the subsequent discovery of several lost films in his private collection has reignited cinema's fascination with the revolutionary work of an underground independent filmmaker known as Yosef Helmuth. The reclusive director's fame in cinema circles is ironic. Helmuth was best known for not wishing to be known. Only one of his films, Schweigen 1953, contains an end-credits sequence, wherein he thanks Mai Lieben-Voltauter, my dear benefactors. His work was distributed privately through panopticon pictures until the company declared bankruptcy in 1962. Nearly all extents prints were destroyed in a warehouse fire. Helmuth's work is characterized by spare structure, emotional isolation, fascination with negative space, no dialogue, and single extraordinarily long takes. His first film, Nox, 1951, is a two-hour exploration of a dilapidated abandoned munitions factory. What makes the film remarkable is how it's shot. One single smooth tracking shot that begins at the entrance to send several flight of stairs and ends in a basement. Given the lack of identifiable cuts, tracks, or rails, even along the stairs, the movie's release produced endless speculation among cinematographers regarding how this was done. Although Nox is the most conventional film Helmuth produced, it still contains surrealist elements that would become hallmarks of his style. The factory's basement is improbably vast, containing far more levels than it should, and includes strange unidentified machinery. At several points, the camera focuses on objects that are out of place. A pink ribbon, false teeth, a wooden dreidel. Near the 70-minute mark, a silhouette is briefly visible passing by a doorway. The final shot, where the camera explores a pitch-black room, lasts for 15 minutes, during which only heavy breathing can be heard. Themes of isolation and emptiness are further elaborated on in Helmuth's fifth film, Doppelganger, 1953. Composed of a 90-minute-long tracking shot, the viewer navigates a carnival's hall of mirrors, while pursued by a hazy, indistinct figure, visible only in each mirror's reflection. The film ends abruptly when the figure appears in front of the camera, obstructing its view. Numerous diehard Helmuth fans have mapped out the interior of the hall based on the camera's movements, only to discover that the camera often moves through what ought to be a solid mirror. To this day, vigorous debate continues over how Helmuth achieved this and other effects, such as the absence of the camera's reflection in any one of the hall's hundreds of mirrors. Sheweled in 1954 is perhaps the film for which Helmuth is most infamous. It is three hours long, and consists of a single-fix shot, four figures burning a top of pyre as a crowd watches from below. Details regarding its screening at a 1965 Oldenburg Film Festival are murky. Viewers express distress, anxiety, and physical illness. This allegedly escalated with the audience storming the projection booth and destroying all prints of the film. Helmuth is notorious for being tight-lipped about his work, having never publicly commented on it. However, in 1961, a student attending Mayor's Academy uncovered a letter authored by him in the college's archives. The following excerpt, translated from its original German, elaborates on his views regarding the role of the author. Quote, Art can only be understood as an excretion of natural indeterminable events, a thing that is shaped via a rudderless process devoid of intent, purpose, or reason. Raindrops falling through a canopy of leaves, apples withering on the branch of a decaying tree, maggots bursting from a dead pigeon's breast. The author is much more than irrelevant. Their relevance is such that to merely mention this irrelevance is to grant them more relevance than they deserve. To say the author is dead, you must first presume the author was once alive. But the author was never alive. The author was never even there. End quote. Immediately after the publication of this letter and several film periodicals, Josef Helmeth ceased to respond to all correspondence and phone calls. No one has heard from him since. In 1962, he produced and published his final film, of Wesenheit. All six copies of the Wesenheit were believed to be lost in the 1962 fire. However, in 1987, a recording of a private viewing was recovered from the home of Basil Odinger, a prominent art collector obsessed with the study of Helmeth. Although incomplete, it indirectly captured a small portion of the filmmaker's final masterpiece. The footage is several minutes in length, and focuses on a television screen on which Wesenheit is playing. The television's footage is heavily distorted. The audience, out of frame, produces muffled sobs. Odinger repeatedly apologizes. As the film draws to its conclusion, the audience becomes increasingly distressed. One member starts to pray. Odinger begs for it to stop. A hand descends in front of the camera, obstructing its view of the television. The recording abruptly ends. Investigations into Basil Odinger's disappearance, and the location of the fabled surviving print of Wesenheit have turned up no results. However, it is notable that the footage of Odinger's viewing was recorded with Kodak 5247, Josef Helmeth's preferred film stock. Wow. Okay, what do you think? Is this real, or too unbelievable? Leave your answer in the comments below. 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