One of director Margarethe von Trotta’s most engaging biopics of famous women, thanks also to a magical yet believable performance by Vicky Krieps (Corsage) in the main role, Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey into the Desert (Ingeborg Bachmann: Reise in die Wüste) takes the audience on a trip inside the female psyche and the anguishing dilemma posed by male-female relationships. Although the film is set in a six-year period from 1958 to 1964, when women’s roles were much more rigidly defined than today, Bachmann’s shattering difficulty claiming her rightful space in love affairs rings a loud bell of truth.
Bowing in Berlin competition, the Match Factory release has the notable production values and sweeping locations, from European capitals to the desert, that should drive it beyond festivals and into theaters.
Perhaps the secret behind von Trotta’s success in making the biographies of intellectual women (Rosa Luxemburg in 1986, Hildegard of Bingen in 2009, Hannah Arendt in 2012) lies in her confidence that audiences are prepared to go beyond the standard biopic formulas and explore the minds and intellects of her subjects. Here it is so refreshing to listen to Bachmann reading her poetry or making a speech to a rapt audience – and being cool about it. When a man suggests to her, flirtatiously, that she is the only serious German poet, obviously expecting her to demur, she answers simply, “Yes.”
The man asking is Max Frisch, a Swiss playwright 15 years her senior. He has invited her to the opening night of his new play in London. With his imposing physique and heavy black glasses, Max (played by Ronald Zehrfeld of Barbara and Beloved Sisters) would appear to stand little chance of capturing the heart of pretty, lithe Ingeborg, who at 32 has already earned the cover of Der Spiegel as the young hope of German-language poetry. But something clicks between them and their courtship continues until Ingeborg moves in with him in Switzerland.
There, in a lovely apartment overlooking a lake, everything falls apart. Ingeborg, a chain smoker who needs peace and quiet for her writing, may be difficult to adjust to, but Max proves to have deeply engrained habits, too. One serious flaw: he is insanely jealous. When he tells her she should have cooked a good meal instead of buying him flowers, you feel the experiment of two writers living together is over.
It’s not. Ingeborg flees to her beloved Rome, where she has close friends like the young composer Hans Werner Henze (Basil Eidenbenz), for whose operas she writes very successful librettos. Production designer Su Erdt reconstructs an atmosphere of Baroque culture in magnificently decorated apartments and cafes, where Ingeborg has a meeting with the distinguished Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (Renato Carpentieri), who she is translating into German. Krieps’ relaxed smile returns amid the artistic life she loves and she seems to have recovered her self-confidence as a writer. Then one day, Max rings the doorbell.
Von Trotta and her excellent editor Hansjorg Weissbrich make the daring but winning choice to cut this literary romance into pieces, using a complex system of flashbacks to work in highlights of Ingeborg’s life and her multiple loves. In a parallel stream of events, she meets the younger Austrian author Adolf Opel (Tobias Resch), who impulsively invites her to accompany him on a trip into the desert. She accepts, and they swiftly become lovers.
Despite his youth, or perhaps because of it, Opel seems a far better match than the constrictive, petty-bourgeois Max, who has left Ingeborg drained, depressed and humiliated. The young man is open-minded and sensitive to Ingeborg’s quirks and needs, and even seconds her outrageous desires – which include a bit of sexual experimentation. She seems older but no less fascinating in the desert scenes, where she embarks on a slow process of emotional healing in the heat and sand.
Martin Gschlacht’s cinematography plays on the split in her psyche, starting from her inner fears visualized in a Lynch-like opening shot in a dark blue corridor, through the sumptuous interiors of theaters and literary gatherings, to a major visual jump into bright hot light in the desert and empty space. Also of note is Ingeborg’s eye-catching wardrobe in startling bold colors courtesy of costume designer Uli Simon, always reminding us of her sophisticated taste. André Mergenthaler’s score (heavy on the classics and a tad too heavy on the Mahler) is a refined pleasure.
Director, screenplay: Margarethe von Trotta
Cast: Vicky Krieps, Ronald Zehrfeld, Tobias Resch, Basil Eidenbenz, Luna Wedler, Marc Limpach, Renato Carpentieri
Producers: Katrin Renz, Bady Minck, Bettina Brokemper, AlexanderDumreicher-Ivanceanu
Cinematography: Martin Gschlacht
Editing: Hansjorg Weissbrich
Production design: Su Erdt
Costume design: Uli Simon
Music: André Mergenthaler
Sound: Patrick Storck
Sound design: Jacques Kieffer, Gina Keller
Production companies: Tellfilm, Amour Fou Vienna, Heimatfilm, Amour Fou Luxembourg
World Sales: The Match Factory
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (International competition)
In German, French, Italian
111 minutes