A Life in Suitcases: A History of Tulse Luper (2005)

A comic study of 20th century history, reconstructing the life of one Tulse Luper, a writer, project-maker and professional prisoner. He was born in 1911 in Newport, Wales and last heard of in 1989. The story of his life is here pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered around the world. This film condenses the seven hour trilogy into a single two-hour feature, and in doing so, accentuates the project as a filmic essay in multiple narratives, listings, side-bars, footnotes, commentaries and anecdotes; as a project for an Information Age ready to understand that there never is a phenomenon called History, there can only be Historians, who are always gatekeepers to vested interests.

Peter GreenawayDirector