I saw Margarete von Trotha's movie: Ingeborg Bachmann - Reise in die Wüste with great interest. The many negative reviews doesn't do justice to the movie because it highlights something that very few films dare to show with such clarity: that men and women don't fit together when they both work creatively. The movie shows that there is a female artist in Ingeborg Bachmann who is in a certain way humanly superior to the man, even if his name is Max Frisch - in the level of understanding, perception and finding words.
Vicky Krieps plays Bachmann, but too much in the quiet tones and colors that Bachmann doesn't really have. Just listen to her radio interviews, where Bachmann speaks in a very firm and brilliant voice. None of that here. Vicky Krieps is probably a phenotypically well cast, but vocally too lukewarm.
Ronald Zehrfeld, on the other hand, plays Frisch in a very courageous way as a toxic man who wants a housemaid, but not the competitor he sees in Ingeborg Bachmann, whom he has to envy and whose success he reacts to in a grumpy, moody and jealous manner.
Zehrfeld, one of the most important German-speaking actors of his generation, is perfectly cast here. We particularly hope for him to have many challenging roles in the future.
Overall, Trotha has made a very good and reliable film in which she courageously takes sides with a vulnerable artist who was stuck in a toxic relationship for far too long. The film's images are strong, sometimes too poetic, which is why they sometimes seem kitsch, sometimes too dignified and twisted.
So, one point is deducted for the vocally weak Vicky Krieps, who is playing too much at the moment and could use a break. As an actress, it's important to make yourself scarce.
The second deduction is for the poorly done, cheesy score and the poor sound mixing. One would like German films to have mixtures like those in the USA or France, where a score does not cover up and drown out the dialogues and conversations, but rather underscores them where necessary. The film was impossible to fully understand, which I particularly regret for a film that lives primarily from the spoken word.
Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be a masterpiece, despite it's potentials inherent in the material, but it was a good piece of craftsmanship that is definitely worth looking at.
