‘Tracing Light’: DOK Leipzig Review

Dir: Thomas Riedelsheimer. Germany, UK. 2024. 99mins

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is mystery,” asserts a quote from Albert Einstein at the start of Thomas Riedelsheimer’s deep dive into the concept of light. Most people are likely to learn a thing or two about the physics behind the phenomenon during the course of this documentary but, in approaching the subject from both a scientific angle and an artistic one, Riedelsheimer finds the sweet spot between knowledge and beauty. 

Accessible science

Tracing Light is the third in a loose trilogy concerned with the compositional elements of film – sound, time and light – which began with 2004’s percussionist profile Touch The Sound: A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie, which also opened DOK Leipzig. It was followed in 2017 by Leaning Into The Wind, a portrait of land artist Andy Goldsworthy that, by extension, considered nature and time. While this third instalment is more diffuse in terms of contributors, featuring both physicists and artists, it allows Riedelsheimer to consider the full spectrum of what light is, and what it means to us. Tracing Light’s strong visuals and accessible science should catch the eye of arthouse distributors as well as the festival circuit. It will be released in German cinemas by Piffl Medien in January 2025.

Some of the things Riedelsheimer captures are familiar, including rainbows and the aurora borealis, but the documentarian – who acts as his own cinematographer and editor – is a keen observer of detail. Through his lens, light glancing off the edge of a bathroom mirror or dancing through a blue-coloured water bottle can be just as fascinating as those grander spectacles.

UK artistic duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt – who create together under the name Semiconductor – go to the Advanced Research Centre at Glasgow University to chat to Daniele Faccio, professor of quantum technologies, about light “as a material”. The artists’ inquisitive nature pairs well with Faccio’s educative spirit, as he explains that, while it is not sentient, “light realises you are watching it and behaves differently.” In short, he notes, “Photons are buggers.”

Meanwhile, in Germany, artistic collaborators Johannes Brunner and Raimund Ritz visit the Max Planck Institute in Erlangen, where they play table football with lasers and become inspired to create an art installation within the building’s pristine white walls. In addition to scenes of light in the natural landscape, in which British land artist Julie Brook talks about and creates her remarkable work, Riedelsheimer also takes his camera inside various gallery art installations that bend and stretch light. In those spaces we see how human viewers interact with these exhibits, often reaching out to touch the beams even though they know they cannot be held.

All Riedelsheimer’s films are concerned on some level with transformation, from vibration to sound or change via the movement of the seasons. In that sense light might be the ultimate transformer, whether it’s bringing vibrancy to dark landscapes as a cloud passes, or by being everywhere at once while remaining completely invisible. The score, by Riedelsheimer’s regular collaborator Fred Frith and fellow musician gabby fluke-mogul, also mixes the concrete with the more ephemeral, pairing traditional string work with more otherworldly electronic sound.

Riedelsheimer finds ways to bring the difficult scientific concepts home, including light being treated as a particle and as a wave, as he gently draws our attention to light in all its forms, whether it is glinting off snow or dappling a pool. Though this film is, chiefly, concerned with our perception of light on a philosophical level, it also touches on the “evolving ideas” about light in science, and some of the remarkable technological advances the physicists hope it may bring.