Directed by: John DiLeva Halpern

2 out of 5

There’s a bit of a background here that helps to frame this doc about “social sculpture” artist Joseph Beuys by contemporary (and, as of this writing, still working) experimental artist John Halpern, with Beuys interest in John’s work encouraging the former to invite the latter to, essentially, hear him speak about his work while he prepared for a retrospective on display at the Guggenheim in ’79. That daisy-chain sentence speaks to the film’s structure, and how it represents Beuys contemplations on his concepts: it approximately says what it needs to, but it also doesn’t say very much. “Transformer” is, more charitably, a film that works best if you not only have that background, but also are already familiar with Beuys, and probably also already like Beuys. I can only imagine it being rather limited in generating interest for (or really educating) anyone trying to learn more about the artist, as the doc rather assumes – based on it minimally highlighting the art, or rather subjecting those highlights to VHS effects for artistic purposes that don’t really allow one to take them in – that you’re sold on this stuff, and you’re just here to hear Beuys’ thoughts and beliefs, which are interesting, but are similarly somewhat chopped up and sprinkled with some artistic artifice. It’s possible that the random words from Beuys’ dialogue that are flashed on screen are meant to assist with his accent, but there’s a bit too much emphasis on their styling – and that randomness – to make that feel useful; the discussions also do not follow very clear threads, jumping around in Beuys’ life and art chronology when speaking about the reasons behind particular pieces so as to make savoring the sincerely interesting tidbits a bit difficult.

To be fair, there is a statement up front to consider this doc as, essentially, a sculpture akin to Beuys’ works, which were meant to be participatory. To that extent, if you view this as an art installation, and don’t try to take explicit information from it, it’s much more palatable. However, that makes sitting through its 60+ minute runtime a bit daunting, if that is, indeed, how it’s meant to be consumed.

Despite the visual gimmickry, filmmaker Halpern is to be commended for staying out of Beuys way, and letting the artist speak. And, at the very least, one can say the constant changeups in topic and the VHS-era flair prevent it from talking-heads doc syndrome, but the excessiveness of those same things can ultimately have a similar droning effect. When “Transformer” zooms out for some moments, capturing Beuys working with his staff, or interviewing those who viewed the exhibit, there’s a very naturalistic vibe that does tap into the feeling of seeing something truly unique, a passion that, again, is there when Beuys is speaking, but ultimately gets very, very diminished by the structure of the film, essentially showing us / telling us all we need to know within a few minutes.