1907, Paris. Over three fever-dream nights in the Hotel Biron, poet Rainer Maria Rilke encounters the ghost of his good friend, artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, who died shortly after giving birth to her first child. In response to this haunting, Rilke writes his epic prose lament, "Requiem for a Friend", as a tribute to Paula and to all women torn between choosing a life sacrificed to Art or to Motherhood.
in "the Greater Circulation" three women - a painter, an actress and a dancer - and a theatre director prepare to stage Rilke's "Requiem" in Berkeley California as abstract performance ritual. The director's real life becomes mysteriously entangled in the metaphors of Rilke's prose when a young Rilke obsessed drama critic insists on penning a story about their upcoming performance. As past and future plots entwine and unfold, the heart of Rilke's melancholic, searing vision of love and loss gives way to unexpected revelations.
verticalpool.com/tgc.html
