KINOPLEX
MARTIN HALL
NOVEL
SEPTEMBER 2010
LINDHARDT OG RINGHOF (ISBN 978-87-1142650-0)
Kinoplex was Martin Hall’s first piece of fiction since his literary breakthrough with The Last Romantic released in August 2005. The title was also made available as an audiobook, a recording featuring a line of new music written by Hall and Danish visual artist Christian Skeel.
In comparison to its predecessor Kinoplex is a darker, more plot-driven novel. The scenes in the book take place at two levels, the first being told from the narrator’s present point of view (24 hours on location in a foreign land), the second enacted as a set of flashbacks shedding light on a story that goes back more 20 years in time.
The book is a tale about the disintegration of identity. It’s a story of voyeurism and modern visual culture – how the constant flux of visuals and excessive image manipulation of everyday life affect us. The question throughout the book remains: What are the consequences of this epidemic spread of visuals in relation to our ability to navigate sanely through our lives?
Genre: Novel
Pages: 203
Design: Kenneth Schultz
Photo: Territorium
"Not even when I stepped out of the cool shadows of the airport could I say with certainty what it was I had traveled so many miles after."
“In many ways the most important book in his literary career.”
Berlingske Tidende (the Danish equivalent to The Times)
“Martin Hall’s new novel is an intelligent analysis of modern voyeurism and its consequences. The story is psychologically interesting because it enacts the void that’s left when all excesses have been staged and experienced.“
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Nordjyske (major regional newspaper)
“It is in all ways an intoxicating book Martin Hall has written … a sensuous language combined with a string of pearls of good, original observations.“
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Fyens Stiftstidende (major regional newspaper)
”Martin Hall has a quite fantastic sense of turning the written language into harmony and you can only surrender to Hall’s linguistic shrewdness and mystical travels into the various intoxications and splendours about all and everything.”
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MetroXpress (Denmark’s biggest free newspaper)
“A novel about a depraved, depressed and disillusioned environment delivered in the most beautiful language … my God, this is good!“
The Literature Site
The novel is supposedly said to have been inspired by an authentic video footage that Martin Hall found on the internet during his research on the subject matter. During the process of writing the book Martin Hall was awarded a grant from The Danish Arts Council.
As already stated the title was also released as an audiobook with its own original soundtrack. Parts of the manuscript also served as basis for an audiovisual stage play that was performed during the autumn of 2010. In November the book was chosen as ”book of the month” at the Main Library of Copenhagen.
Herbert Zeichner at the “Kinoplex” theatrical performance at Københavns Musikteater (Copenhagen’s Music Theatre).