We are never finished with history,” said actress Iris Berben in a recent interview. “The older I get, the more questions I have.” History and German film tend to form a very fertile combination. It’s almost an established truth in the film industry: as soon as directors, screenwriters and actors from Germany set about transforming a historical theme into film, something great emerges. The Lives of Others (Oscar 2007), Downfall (Oscar nomination 2007), The Baader Meinhof Complex (Oscar nomination 2009), The Tin Drum (Oscar 1980) and The Boat (Oscar nomination 1983) are just a few of the many film successes. So now Iris Berben is posing her questions to German cinema.
The Day Will Come is a film in which one of the country’s most popular actresses focuses on the terrorism of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the 1970s. What is it like to live as a one-time terrorist who gave up her child when she went underground? And what happens when this child suddenly turns up on the doorstep demanding answers from her mother who is living under a false identity? “When I read the script, I knew straight away that I wanted to play this role, most likely because the story is narrated in a very differentiated way,” says Iris Berben as she explains her decision to act in the film directed by Susanne Schneider.
Iris Berben had to wait a long time for offers like this. Although German cinema and television is unimaginable without her, until a few years ago she was most well-known for her comedy talent. But then her brilliant rendering of company head Bertha Krupp in the TV trilogy Krupp – Eine deutsche Familie (2009), which covered a period of 35 years, and her performance in Heinrich Breloer’s spectacular filming of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (2008) equally impressed both critics and audiences. However, the confrontation between Iris Berben in the role of the fictitious RAF activist Judith Müller and Katharina Schüttler playing her daughter in The Day Will Come represents the pinnacle of her 40-year career. Impressive, intense, disturbing, this is an unusual kind of confrontation with the past that shows how terrorism continues to affect society to the present day.
Herbs and music were the only associations that spontaneously occurred to Barbara Sukowa at the mention of the name Hildegard von Bingen. But it was enough for her to immediately say “yes” when director Margarethe von Trotta asked her if she would like to play the part of the medieval abbess. This opened the door for the two legendary figures of the German cinema to embark on their fifth joint project. Barbara Sukowa eagerly started research for her new role and simply couldn’t get over her astonishment. She became increasingly fascinated by the mystic and healer who fearlessly gave moral lectures to emperors and church dignitaries: “She could easily have been burnt at the stake for witchcraft,” says Barbara Sukowa, who wasn’t at all scared by the role. She is excellently acquainted with rebellious women in German history. She began her career as Mieze in Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz. Then there was the role of Rosa Luxemburg and the part based on RAF terrorist Gudrun Ensslin in the award-winning Marianne and Juliane (Die bleierne Zeit). In contrast, Hildegard von Bingen, the healer and poetess, is much calmer. But if you look more intently, you will recognize the impish smile that Sukowa lends to her Hildegard, as well as the strange aura of superiority that surrounds her despite all the drama and struggles against the representatives of secular and clerical authority. To put it simply: a strong woman played by an actress bursting with energy.
Johanna Wokalek’s latest role in Pope Joan also deals with the struggle against hypocritical authorities and inflexible power structures, the courageous protest of the individual against the pressure of the majority. The fact that the story derives from a medieval legend is hardly of importance. The novel of the same title, written by Donna Cross about a young woman who dressed as a man and rose to the Holy Father’s throne during the Middle Ages, became an international bestseller. The German director Sönke Wortmann transformed this tale into a tempestuous, monumental epic with powerful imagery and an outstanding actress in the leading role. Wokalek brilliantly masters the tightrope walk between the devout monk and the loving woman. She plays a fascinatingly androgynous part combining vulnerability and determination. “The camera sees everything you think and feel,” says the graceful 34-year-old actress who possesses enormous intellectual scope and emotional depth. It’s not surprising that the famous Burgtheater in Vienna unhesitatingly welcomed Wokalek into its ensemble.
Critics have rarely expressed such agreement. According to them this film leaves the audience “breathless”, “touched” and “deeply moved”. Fiction pales against the story of Saviors in the Night. The fate of the Jewish Spiegel family, who hid with friendly farmers just before they were about to be arrested by the Nazis in 1943, is true. The Spiegels survived the Holocaust, and after the war the wife and mother, Marga Spiegel, published their experiences in a book. On the cinema screen Veronica Ferres embodies Marga Spiegel who is now 97 years old. The German actress Ferres is a leading expert when it comes to playing great historical dramas, such as the TV trilogy Die Manns about the family of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann, The Woman from Checkpoint Charlie and The Miracle of Berlin, both of which focus on the division of Germany and reunification. Her first feature film Schtonk!, the Oscar-nominated satire about the forged Hitler diaries, shaped her preference for social-historical themes. She was so moved by Marga Spiegel’s story that she set about finding a producer herself. Her determination proved successful. And after the premiere in Jerusalem Marga Spiegel herself confirmed how well Ferres had found her way into the role of the persecuted Jewish woman. When asked about Veronica Ferres’ depiction of her life, she said: “It’s so close to reality that it hurts. To me, this isn’t just a film, it’s my life.” The most touching German film this autumn has developed into a real-life sequel. Spiegel and Ferres, who spent hours and days together researching for the film, have become close friends. It goes to show that the best stories are found not in the cinema, but still in real life.
