Ludwig, requiem pour un roi vierge

Hans Jürgen Zymberberg takes on a historical person with a suppressed personal life, an ultimate romantic who lives only in art.

The film composes an operatic work, absolutely unique. Shot entirely in a studio, brightly lit with equally vivid colors. But there are no sets. The faces move in front of projections of the spaces.

There is no attempt at realism here. Only a reminder of reality through continuous center shots. A typically German theatricality prevails without any break, an ostentatious theatricality that suits the person it sketches so well.

The material for this portrait is equally theatrical and arbitrary. There are no hesitations about borrowing from everywhere, nor about its limitless aesthetics.

And yet this collage, this delirium that initially surprises, manages to touch the heart of a person trapped inside his own body and the environment he found himself in. And mostly fatally trapped, in the role he was forced to play.

Because Ludwig is a fallen angel, a person who has nothing to do with power but has to play the ruler. Even if he wanted to, it is impossible for him. He can't play other people's game.

Those who put him in this position realize that he is not the subordinate they expected, he is an obstacle. So, they will dethrone him and immediately after that they will assassinate him. And perhaps this death and the wet grave of a lake, is a redemption for him who had everything at his feet but missed life so much.