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At 91 years of age, Alexander Kluge is solidly regarded as a trailblazing figure in New German Cinema and the avant-garde. He remains active and curious about media, so it’s no wonder that he recently began experimenting with artificial intelligence. He has been exploring a particular programme developed in Munich for medical research, which he systematically strains in order to find his images at the farthest ends of the system's creative faculties. With these, Kluge plays in the same essayistic fashion beloved from his television work – historical footage and a plenitude of texts, comics, charts and cabaret. In short: facts and fictions freely intermingle. What makes Cosmic Miniatures especially satisfying is the way Kluge connects back to the early 1970s, arguably his most exuberant filmmaking period. It was then he created a few low budget science fiction movies – pulpy but with serious political smarts. This would also well describe the occasionally lurid joys of Cosmic Miniatures, like when memories of valiant space dog Laika sets the stage for the birth of a whole species of intergalactic battle dogs. The finale, though, with its homage to Kluge's friend Edgar Reitz, opens up another unexpected dimension, very much a masterpiece unto itself. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)
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