By the time I write this text, I've already seen the film six times. Yes, all voluntarily. I just can't get enough.
3 days in Quiberon is a journey I want to go on over and over again.
I forget everything during these two hours. I suffer with Romy. I feel her fear, her courage, her defiance, I am troubled, anxious, barefaced, tipsy, lost, found, trapped and set free. I live through all this in my red velveted cinema chair in the dimmed theatre. Even if Romy Schneider is always surrounded by other people, the loneliness of this woman breaks my heart.
I get angry hearing the arrogant journalist asking shameless questions. I become desperate feeling Hilde's urge to protect her friend and the pain caused by rejection. I would like to lean my head against the shoulder of Robert Lebeck, hide in his strong arms, the small camera in his big hands. I hear the click it makes when he takes a picture, the sea, the music, the silence...
This is how I find myself sitting in my red cinema chair and every time, this movie takes it out of me. 3 days in Quiberon is a close-up view that comes this close it nearly hurts. But as soon as on screen Romy smiles, I'm infected with happiness. Her happiness is so pure, just like her calamity. But in between seconds, a moment, a glimpse, there's hope. And that also hurts, somehow, a fugitive prick in my stomach.
During the last scenes, I'm overwhelmed by my emotions. I can barely take to leave this woman alone with her sad destiny. Neither does Romy Schneider leave me, she follows me around in my thoughts for some more days... This year she'd have celebrated her 80th birthday.
Special fact about the premiere of a film is that the audience can meet the cast & crew. And you know that you're 'fan nr. 1' when the director recognizes you from the other premiere you where attending in another city just one week ago. I'm such a lucky girl I could meet Emily Atef again and tell her by person how I feel about her movie. It's such a masterpiece and I am so thankful they made it.
Emily Atef is a woman I admire and not only is she incredibly talented, she's also a very gentle, interested and humble person. If a director puts so much passion and empathy into a film like she does, the result can only be a movie that is incredibly touching from the very first. 3 days in Quiberon definitely is such a movie.
Followed the premiere at Düsseldorf, this time also Marie Bäumer, who plays Romy Schneider, came. Yes, she looks quite alike the famous Austrian actress, but first of all, it's her role in this film. Like Romy Schneider wasn't Sissi, Marie Bäumer isn't Romy Schneider. But that's a fact I completely forget during these 155 minutes. And that pretty much says it all. It's not about what you see on the outside, on screen she might really look like Romy, but it's more about what you feel inside when seeing her play.
It takes some things for an actress to make the spectators feel something, for that they're touched. But it's all there when Marie Bäumer plays. I witness her become this fragile, tormented human being and I feel my own human flaws and that is more than I could wish from a movie: it makes me feel. I see humanity in a hundred different ways - some hurt, some heal. I think emotions can be a blessing. Marie Bäumer has that special talent and with her interpretation of Romy Schneider she deeply touches me. I admire her since I first saw her in a german comedy, 18 years ago, and I admire her even more now. To meet her in person was a dream come true. She's such a strong personality, natural and friendly, humble and, in opposition to her film character, well-balanced.
3 days in Quiberon is clearly one of the most touching movies I've ever seen. When I first saw it, I thought: this might be one of the best films I've ever seen (and I go to the movies a lot!). By now I think: this actually is the one best movie I've ever seen. It's beautiful, it's painful, it is perfection. It left me sad and happy and a million things in between. And that's what films are for: emotions. But what am I telling you. Go see it, you'll understand me.
