The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story

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🎙️ EPISODE 556: 09.16.22 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝟎-𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞 RANKING GREENAWAY 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 This is a joint review for all three volumes of The Tulse Luper Suitcases film series and multimedia project. The better part of Greenaway's early 00s was devoted to The Tulse Super Suitcases, a massive project initially intended to comprise four feature-length movies (three "source" material films and one condensed, compilation of trilogy), a 16-episode TV series, and 92 DVDs, as well interactive websites, a live video installation performance, CD-ROMs and books.

This is a culmination of techniques from previous efforts (Prospero's and Dante, most notably, but also Pillow Book and 8 1/2 Women), but the substance — in all its various avenues, although some have been lost to the sands of time — has finally caught up with the style and both feel enhanced for it. Who knew, it only took true and unmatched over-indulgence to get there. The film is literally about EVERYTHING.

Ultimately, three movies were released (Part 1: The Moab Story, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea, and Part 3: From Sark to Finish) between 2003-2005, as well as an additional feature constructed after the fact called A Life In Suitcases, which appears to be impossible to find and I have not seen. Equally hard to find are two books: Tulse Luper in Turin and Tulse Luper in Venice, both published in 2004. For a filmmaker and true multi-hyphenate artist of such renown it's almost unfathomable that anything could be 'lost' to this degree, but here we are.

However, the saddest absence of all, in my eyes, is the inability to access/play the Tulse Luper online game, which was actually 92 individual flash-based "suitcase" games featured on the interactive website The Tulse Luper Journey. That site WAS still online (www.tulseluperjourney.com) as of 2020, although the tech used to load/download/host it had long since lapsed, leaving it the shell of a Web 1.0 relic collecting dust online, and now, finally: completely dead.


At the time, the active game was intricately tied to the films; not until a winner completed all 92 levels was the final film released. Of the "winner," whose prize included an all-expenses paid trip mimicking Tulse Luper's travels (and often imprisonment) during his first writings about the discovery of uranium in Moab, Utah in 1928 to his mysterious disappearance at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the website had stated:

"One player is about to make a real Tulse Luper Journey. Daniel Capelletti, aka Dacap, has been announced as winner of the Trip around the World competition on the 5th of November 2007. With a world ticket and about 1800 EURO's he will travel the world in the footsteps of Tulse Luper."

screenshot from the gameplay

Here's an exerpt from Dacap's research proposal: "My project is to write a large symphonic concept based on Tulse Luper's suitcases. The whole piece will be 92 minutes long, each minute directly connected to the corresponding suitcase ... As a researcher and in order to largely enhance my inspiration sources I want to visit all the locations where Tulse Luper was kept as a prisoner - Moab desert, Vaux, Sark, Budapest, Kyoto, Mandchouria and... Antwerpen!"

In fact, Capelletti did go onto write a piece of music inspired by/dedicated to the Tulse Luper project: a symphonic piece called Transience in 2007 that is, you guessed it, impossible to find. Given the scope and work involved in helming this, that so much of it feels like an afterthought re the Greenaway oeuvre is a serious crime, in my opinion. Sure, he completely runs out of steam by Part 3, but generally these are inspired and deeply creative movies, truly built to watch in succession, all six hours, over the course of a few viewings.

If anything up to this point could be described as visual hodgepodge or mess, well, it was only an appetizer for the range of storytelling devices in The Tulse Luper Suitcases project. Every editing trick, post-production gimmick and staging technique employed before is here, amped up to such a degree that it occasionally feels like several films are playing at the same time. It's so much that if you don't let it wash over you, you'll be inclined to shut it off immediately. But somewhere in the overindulgence, these gimmicks started to feel purposeful and it clicked. Since The Falls, Greenaway has been in search of ways to move cinema forward and beyond, and that involves taking big chances. And while one could see this as a giant swing and a miss — the filmic equivalent of an ouroboros — I feel like it connects in its boldness, in all its messy glory.

I wouldn't go so far as calling these a classic series of films, but they are and remain sincerely ahead of their time. I honestly see no modern counterpart. This was a proposal for an artsy-fartsy multimedia empire on par with Star Wars in terms of its world-building purview. It never stood a chance.

This also marks the clear departure point from traditional narrative fiction into the style of warped historical biopic which Greenway is still operating in as of this present day. It also marks the end of his manic layered visuals" style.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 555 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 556B ⫸

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The Tulse Luper Suitcases is a multimedia project by Peter Greenaway, initially intended to comprise four films, three "source" and one feature, a 16-episode TV series, and 92 DVDs, as well as Web sites, CD-ROMs and books. Once the online Web-based portion of the project was completed, the "winner" having taken a trip following Tulse Luper's travels (and often imprisonment) during his first writings about the discovery of uranium in Moab, Utah in 1928 to his mysterious disappearance at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the final, feature film was released. Part 1 was released on July 18, 2003.