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The Week in Germany: Culture November 3, 2006 Of Lust and Longing in Provincial Brandenburg Markus lives with Ella, but falls for Rose. Consumed by an intense desire for two women, he succumbs to a state of quiet desperation punctuated by few words but powerful feelings which threaten to tear apart his deceptively serene life. Like a postmodern fairytale set in a timeless sleepy little hamlet, Valeska Grisebach's first feature-length film, "Longing" (Sehnsucht), is a mesmerizing cinematic ode to unbridled passion and the destructive power of human desire.
Inspired by a true story Although inspired by a true story Grisebach heard while on holiday in France, it is also a resoundingly Germanic character study, a film that paints an understated, haunting picture of powerful emotions bubbling beneath controlled exteriors among hard-working and reliable country folk. They barely raise their voices even under the utmost duress to the extent that "Longing" may as well be set in Finland, the Nordic nation considered least likely to embrace Anglo-Saxon style small talk or the cheerful chatter of the Latin world. "Many people have commented after watching the film on the lack of dialogue," Grisebach told The Week in Germany following a screening of Longing at the Kino!2006 German filmfest in New York. "I always respond that, yes, while this is true, what they say is very different compared to what most of us say to each other most of the time." Too close for comfort? During a Q&A session following the screening with the soft-spoken and ethereal Grisebach, casually clad in pre-faded blue jeans and a black leather jacket, one member of the audience expressed "discomfort" at the love scenes between the actors. They were intended, she replied, to express longing. "Like sitting at a table and talking, it is another form of communication," she added. "I began this project by thinking about the meaning of 'longing', and went from there," she said. "I started with the atmosphere, and no subject … it is about wanting something very badly but at the same time a bit different because you cannot have everything … so I started to interview a lot of people over 30 who suddenly found themselves to be adults." The film's love scenes are explicit not in that they show graphic nudity or sex, but through often extreme close-ups of the characters hungrily embracing, kissing and staring into each others eyes, or smiling ever so slightly all to themselves in a state of loved-up ecstatic elation. Everyone can identify with such emotions, and that is where the "discomfort" comes in. The understated intensity is so taut at times the screen burns up more than during any Hollywood car chase or explosion.
A romantic hero The film is set in the Brandenburg village of Zühlen, population 200, about an hour north of Berlin. Markus (Andreas Müller), works as a locksmith and leads a quiet, comfortable existence with his childhood sweetheart, Ella (Ilka Welz). Markus serves his community as a volunteer fireman, and it is on the first night of a training weekend in a nearby town that his world changes. After an evening of steady drinking with his fellow firemen in a country inn and an intense solo dance, Markus wakes up in the bed of barmaid Rose (Anett Dombusch). Unable or unwilling to articulate his feelings in the ensuing emotional crisis, he tries to punish himself through a desperate act. "I wanted him to come across as a romantic hero," said Grisebach. With its many intimate close-ups, interspersed by a few scenes of typical German family gatherings and festivities, the film's score becomes all the more poignant, especially given the few words uttered. Markus' solo dance is performed to Robbie Williams "Feel", and there is a touching family scene featuring an amateur acoustic piano version of Grauzone's "Eisbär", arguably one of the best German pop songs ever to come out of the Neue Deutsche Welle of the early 1980's. Speaking on the sidelines after the film screening, veteran German filmmaker Michael Verhoeven moreover praised Grisebach for her work in building unexpected suspenseful twists into the film. "Your cutting was superb," he tells the 38-year-old, who is affiliated with the internationally feted "Berlin School" of talented new young German directors. How regular people from real life became lead actors Grisebach, who smiles shyly beneath an upswept mane of tousled honey-colored hair, her slim features accented by a delicate gold necklace and earrings in an art nouveau pattern, meanwhile spoke matter-of-factly about the film's stars. No one appearing in the film is a known, or even trained, actor. The three leads, selected from hundreds of mostly rural men and women approached over at least six months, had to take time off from their day jobs and use up some of their own vacation time to complete the project. "I wanted to use real pople. In real life, Markus is a mechanic, Ella is a nurse in Berlin and Rose works in a little village in Brandenburg where I go every summer. I've always adored her and wanted to use her in a film," said Grisebach, who was born in Bremen and studied film in Vienna. The movie was also shot in that same village, she added, noting that it is intended to have a "fairytale" quality. "It is purposefully unreal in the sense that not once do you see or hear a cellphone during the movie, for instance," said Grisebach. "It is a simple story, like a country song." "At first, I wasn't sure how the local residents would react, but when I asked some of them to participate in the film they were very helpful and really willing to take part in the project," she added. By using a group of children to talk about what may (or may not!) have happened to Markus in the end he becomes a "legend", she explained. "Children know a lot and they know nothing." A modest masterpiece To anyone lucky enough to see Grisebach's quietly moving fable of longing,
Markus certainly is hard to forget. As Eddie Cockrell puts it in a review
of the film in the Kino!2006 program: "Among the embarrassment of
riches offered by the German cinema in the competition section of the
2006 Berlin festival, 'Longing' stood out as a modest masterpiece of observational
storytelling." Links: |
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