During the TIFF19 world premiere of Ina Weisse’s THE AUDITION, I was sitting next to Canadian playwright-mathematician John Mighton, the author of The Myth of Ability, who argues that we are all born capable of learning anything. Throughout this family drama, I kept thinking about what that looks like here, especially when Nina Hoss in her role as a driven music teacher fights with her student about the relationship between quantity of practice and the intensity of playing.
At the advanced and demanding music school Anna teaches at, most colleagues administer their students and their art form. Anna burns for her work. And her new violin student Alexander. Too much as it turns out.
The former orchestra violinist-turned-teacher lives a typical, artsy middle-class Berlin life with her instrument-maker husband and teen son. But something is off, there is a crack early on in the happy family tableau. The husband is romantic, although he doesn't have much else going for him, remaining a weak, sidelined character. The hands-on, hockey-loving boy is bright, eventually forcing the agenda. Abrupt scene changes, curtailed with hard cuts, yank us out of any safe reverie from the start. Does Anna's son leave the birthday party in protest or to get his instrument to obligingly perform for the family? Roles and motivations stay intentionally unclear, unspoken things hang in the air, although nothing as easily labelled as stage fright or Anna’s strict upbringing by her cold, borderline sadistic father, who she more and more comes to resemble. The issue seems to be something inside of her. Proud and unapproachable her husband calls her. Just for us to see her embracing her lover. Imperfection is beautiful, the husband tries to tell her, but that of course does nothing to alleviate her fear of mediocrity.
Confidence or lack thereof is the motif here, as is excellence, how to conjure it up, how to hold on to it. To be the best in any “ensemble" —whether a music group or a family— you need to tune in. Anna is quietly frustrated by her inability or just anxiety to do that, losing perspective on what is in front of her --crumbling marriage, exasperated kid. Still she keeps going, working day and night towards Alexander’s crucial entrance audition.
Anna does not really know what she wants, she can't make decisions about dinner or men or her career. Or perhaps the problem is that she wants it all, wants them all. Or it is the discrepancy between "what you want and what you think you can do," as Anna explains to Alexander during one of their increasingly arduous lessons.
The teacher projects both her sense of inadequacy as well as her ambition onto her student, a bit like a beauty pageant mum living vicariously through her model-child. The sensitive, talented boy (non-actor violinist Ilja Monti) becomes a project, a proxy, an obsession, to the breaking point. If Alexander remains somewhat one-dimensional, it is because he has only one purpose: to mirror Anna. When you think Weisse might leave us hanging in this limbo, an actually dramatic event happens. Anna's fear of failure, her struggle with reality not living up to her expectations and aspirations, keeps her in a (self-)destructive mindset and ultimately becomes, in the most tragic way, a self-fulfilling prophecy for herself and others.
For Weisse, who you might know more as an actor (NEVER LOOK AWAY) than a director (THE ARCHITECT), Das Vorspiel is her sophomore directorial and co-writing effort. The German title means both audition as well as prelude, adding a dimension of meaning where one could see the majority of the film's crescendo as a “prelude” to a potentially more fully realized life at the end. Weisse herself is a seasoned musician, and you can tell from her pacing, rhythm, and noticeable music choices --not too popular but personally meaningful, she explained in the Q&A after the premiere.
Two funny scenes, though enjoyable, are odd ones out, the rest is overall engrossing inner turmoil that pulls you along with Anna, as always expertly portrayed by Nina Hoss --I cannot name any mediocre performance from Hoss ever-- as a torn, multilayered woman reminiscent of her cool, inscrutable BARBARA. Conscious of the price she and others are paying but ultimately unfazed, she walks up and down hallways and streets in her wool-skirt-and-cardigan combos. We often see her from behind, perhaps the director's way of staying away from passing moral judgment or looking for explanations in her face. Weisse confirmed that while she didn’t start out the project with a particular lead actor in mind, she knew when she had the script in hand that Hoss had to be Anna. Hoss added her take on the woman’s character, saying that she saw Anna as strong, but not knowing what is right or wrong, or where the boundaries are.
THE AUDITION does not have the radicality or vital force of WHIPLASH; instead you are left with a lingering unease as greyish-beige as the set design and Anna’s matronly outfits. The small family looks at an uncertain but possibly more cohesive future, one where Anna actually might see and reconcile what she has —talent, loving husband, gifted child— instead of what she doesn't —orchestral fame and extraordinariness.
Many things tie Anna to Wiebke, Hoss‘ other mothering role at TIFF in the North American premiere of PELICAN BLOOD. Vulnerability paired with dogged determination, bordering on mania. Trying to defy failure. Mothering as a lost, lonely woman. Hoss excels at both roles and carries both films.
by
Jutta Brendemühl
image: Jutta Brendemühl
