After the fast-paced thriller opening film The Fifth Estate two hours earlier -- too fast-paced to take a closer look at the complex issue of privacy & transparency, despite an intense Cumberbatch and a solid Bruehl-- #TIFF13 started on a high note for German film aficionados. "Family's always a hassle," teenaged Ben says at the beginning of Caroline Link's North American premiere, and he will be proven right.
The colorful life in the narrow streets, the picturesque oases, and the monumental Atlas Mountains are more than just a mesmerizing backdrop for an intense piece of cinema, they are signposts on the protagonists’ emotional maps. With many other filmmakers, a German-African love story set in "exotic" and bustling North Africa could easily have turned to kitsch. Here, Morocco is a catalyst and a challenge to the protagonists. Caroline Link smartly lets the viewer find their place in the tense relationships between the three main characters. The location was so crucial to her that Link herself noted that
"the same story in a different setting probably wouldn’t have interested me as much."
She has always focused on emotions rather than storyline -- here the conflict between a father who is disinterested in/annoyed at fatherhood and a nearly-adult son who doesn't know what to do with a (so far absent) father, or at least this father. Twice Oscar-nominated, for "Beyond Silence" and "Nowhere in Africa", for which she won, Link remains equanimous: “No award in the world makes my films better than I think they are,“ adding that “a few scenes turned out really well.” This is not coquetry, but the what-you-see-&-hear-is-what-you-get woman she is when you talk to her.
Die Zeit in their elaborate set report from North Africa refreshes our memory of the quiet scenes that got "Nowhere in Africa" an Academy Award and that "Exit Marrakech" affords us as well, especially between the two strong male characters, Ulrich Tukur ("John Rabe", "The White Ribbon", "The Lives of Others") and really impressive newcomer Samuel Schneider: “It’s the moments where nothing moves that make the cinema of Caroline Link. Where there are simply two or three people together, as closely as possible. Like in ‘Nowhere in Africa’: The small family cuddled up in bed, the father saying softly, more to himself than the others: Everything I love is in this bed.”
One starts to wonder whether or how autobiographical Caroline Link's work is and where these characters come from and Link knows that these questions come up. "For me every screenplay begins with a strong connection. It’s not just about a protagonist but about the antagonist as well. I think that in the movies, the core of the story should revolve around two people. My stories up to now have mostly been about family connections. Father figures play a big role, I can’t say why. I had a very close and warm relationship with my father. Real people influence the characters I create as well as their dialogue. Members of my family have always made their way into my films, although not concretely. It’s more the spirit of our family. It was actually my husband Dominik (Graf, the filmmaker) who originally said 'Sometimes one’s imagination is better than reality'" (almost the same line as the father's in "Exit Marrakech").
Die Zeit report also made an interesting observation of how organically Caroline Link the writer-director works with the script (while sitting in her hotel in Marrakech during the shoot): “On the right is the scripted text she wrote back home in Munich. On the left of her file folder is ample room for notes, what she notices here, what she decides to stage differently after all.” When you watch the film, you will see how everything is carefully planned but still has room to react to the process and the environment (Compare my piece on Ramon Zürcher’s debut here next week, where we’ll encounter the opposite approach to filmmaking.) Tukur, asked what it was like to work with the director, commented: "Caroline is very precise. She fights like a lion for her films, for every line, every sound. That can be strenuous at times because she catches you immediately if you cheat."
Reminder for this Friday: We have Caroline Link at the Goethe in conversation with Canadian filmmaker Ruba Nadda. If it's anything like TIFF's post-premiere Q&A, get ready for Caroline Link to ask questions back at the audience>
September 6, 5pm (doors open 4.40pm)
Goethe-Institut Toronto, 100 University Ave., 2nd floor
free // limited seating // first come first served // no reservations
by Jutta Brendemühl
