Valtos is a story told from thirty years hence, in the last moments of its narrator, who awoke one day in 1987 'with the knowledge that I had been duplicated during the night, and that I was an inferior replica of myself'. There follows a relentless, epic, pursuit of an absconding phantom - his 'original' - which ends in catastrophe at Valtos, a place at once ethereal and terrifying.
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Keiller has these interesting moments throughout his work where he intertwines fictitious realities with objective reality, he can mention very serious political or emotional issues with somewhat (and sometimes totally) outlandish ideas like being duplicated in the middle of the night like Valtos or, like done in the Robinson Trilogy, a narrator with a flaneur friend that isn't real. Those outlandish ideas obviously aren't meant to be taken as serious or fully fiction and have philosophical or metaphorical readings - but within the context of the own story, it feels completely real and serious.
Outside of the narration, the cinematography is sublime. I watched twice because I wanted to get the most out of it and it's awful quality, but…
