Borges, Books and the Night

A realisation in film of the extraordinary literary universe of definitive modernist writer Jorge Luis Borges was always going to be a huge challenge. To his credit, however, Bauer makes a very effective shot at it. Using found footage, interviews, biographical reconstructions, dramatised extracts and an allusive imagery, he constructs a multi-layered portrait of the author's life and work, tracing the Möbius strip of overlaps and collusions between the two. And if he denies Borges his self-declared 'hope to be anonymous, it is the highest kind of glory,' he does admit the uncategorisable mystery at the heart of his unique literary project.