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98 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 6 2o20 (Travel) Anna Karina Sennefelder | Revival of the cultural stereotype? Rather than analyse these settings as isolated snapshots, it is important to understand and interpret them within their specific multimodal contexts. The mode of presentation for docu- mentary is essentially composed of the following parameters: camera position, camera angle, light and colour, sound, language, music, montage and mise-en-scène. The camera angles in Weit are generally ‘classic’, which means that they are in line with common shots in narrative films: the landscapes are revealed through long shots, but rarely in extreme long shots (however, there is one, for example, at the end of the film, when the couple returning home is filmed from behind from a bird’s eye view and the camera then rises higher and higher by drone, up to an extreme long shot), and people are usually shown in head and shoulder close-ups. However, the specific film design of Weit consists of music, sound, language and montage: the soundtrack contains music of the countries Allgaier and Weisser travelled through, as well as ten pieces that were specifically composed for Weit by Falk Schönfelder and Isaac Friesensome.3 The VO is alternately recorded by Allgaier and Weisser, remaining identical in tune and tempo throughout the film. The VO thus contributes to the discursive effect of the ‘images’ in the film. There is no loud, ecstatic or otherwise conspicuous linguistic transmission of emotion at any point. The VO is of course scripted and retrospectively recorded, yet the use of the present tense (see the VO quoted above) gives the audience the impression that the narrative commentary expresses the immediate emotionality of each scene, and suggests that Allgaier and Weisser made all their travel experiences admirably relaxed. Although the alternating voices of Allgaier and Weisser create minimal tonal variety, the slow pace of speech and the monotone speech melody, which is maintained without variation, contribute to the communicated positive experience: the unin- terruptedly steady tempo and the constant melody in the VO reflect the travellers’ uninterrupt- edly positive experience. The sequence starts with an image of Weisser externally (visible by her clothing) and inter- nally (communicated in the VO) preparing herself to enter Pakistan. She is about to form her ‘own image’ of a reality that was previously only communicated to her through the media. The commentary in the VO thus repeats the travel motto that was central in the prologue: “The imag- ination leaves and the experience comes”. The goal is to see the world for oneself in order to be able to see it “as it really is” and to break down false presumptions. Behind these assumptions lies the concept of the ‘authentic experience’, opposed to a mere ‘fantasy or fiction that distorts reality’, for which Plato’s allegory of the cave is the eternal reference. But, as postmodern and constructivist thinking subjects, we do know that there is no real difference between ‘authentic experience’ and ‘fiction’, and that “visual representations are often less realistic than it seems”, because they “distort rather than reflect social reality” (Alù and Hill 2018: 1). Like all people, travellers have their own “script” (Greenblatt 1996: 10), which can never be completely abandoned and that is why the world can never truly be seen ‘as it really is’. People will always have their own assumptions and expecta- tions that shape their perception of reality, but it is important that these assumptions are commu- nicated as reflectively and transparently as possible and, as Luhmann writes, that people learn to be aware of the blind spots in their perspective, and to deal with them openly and creatively. However, in Weit, Allgaier and Weisser disregard the importance of observer-dependent perceptions and evaluations, and instead assert that by focusing on only the beautiful and good of different cultures, they have found the ‘right way’ of viewing the world. As a result, despite its communicated curiosity 3 Cf. <https://weit-filmmusik.de/> [accessed 24 March 2021]