''Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert'' is a 2023 European co-production

biopic A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or group of people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudrama films and histo ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Margarethe von Trotta Margarethe von Trotta (; born 21 February 1942)Hans Helmut Prinzler, ''Chronik des deutschen Films, 1895–1994'' (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995), p. 149. is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been ref ...

and stars

Vicky Krieps Vicky Krieps (born 4 October 1983) is a Luxembourgish-German actress. She has appeared in a number of American, Luxembourgish, French, and German productions. Her breakout role was in the London-based period film ''Phantom Thread'' (2017), direct ...

in the titular role. The film depicts the life of Austrian poet and author

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (; 25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. She is regarded as one of the major voices of German-language literature in the 20th century. In 1963, she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature b ...

(1926–1973). It was selected to compete for the

Golden Bear The Golden Bear () is the highest prize awarded for the best film at the Berlin International Film Festival and is, along with the Palme d'Or and the Golden Lion, the most important international film festival award. The bear is the heraldic an ...

at the

73rd Berlin International Film Festival The 73rd annual Berlin International Film Festival, usually called the Berlinale (), took place from 16 to 26 February 2023. It was the first completely in-person Berlinale since 70th Berlin International Film Festival, the 70th in 2020. The fe ...

, where it had its world premiere on 19 February 2023.

Synopsis

The biopic film is about the life of the Austrian poet and author

, who lived in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, and

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. The film depicts her relationship with Swiss playwright

Max Frisch Max Rudolf Frisch (; 15 May 1911 – 4 April 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity (social science), identity, individuality, Moral responsibility, responsibility, morality, and political commi ...

, her friendship with composer

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large List of compositions by Hans Werner Henze, oeuvre is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky, Mu ...

, and her trip to Egypt with writer Adolf Opel. It also showcases her radical texts and readings.

Cast

as Ingeborg Bachmann * Ronald Zehrfeld as Max Frisch * Tobias Resch as Adolf Opel * Basil Eidenbenz as Hans Werner Henze * Marc Limpach as Tankred Dorst *

Luna Wedler Luna Wedler (born 26 October 1999) is a Swiss people, Swiss actress. She gained popularity by starring in the 2020 Netflix series ''Biohackers''. Early life Wedler grew up alongside two siblings in Zürich's District 6 (Zürich), District 6. S ...

as Marlene * Renato Carpentieri as

Giuseppe Ungaretti Giuseppe Ungaretti (; 8 February 1888 – 2 June 1970) was an Italian modernist poet, journalist, essayist, critic, academic, and recipient of the inaugural 1970 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. A leading representative of the experi ...

* Ricardo Angelini as Kellner Café Greco Rom * Bettina Scheuritzel as Zuschauerin leseabend

Production

The film was shot from 28 March to 6 June 2022 in the cities of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Rome, Zürich,

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, while the desert scenes were shot in

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

Release

''Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert'' had its premiere on 19 February 2023 as part of the

, in competition. It played at the German Film Festival in multiple cinemas across Australia between 2 and 24 May 2023. The film was selected in 'Cinema International' section at the

29th Kolkata International Film Festival The 29th Kolkata International Film Festival began on 5 December 2023 at Netaji Indoor Stadium, in Kolkata, India. A 1963 romantic comedy Bengali film ''Deya Neya'' by Sunil Bannerjee opened the festival, which screened 219 films from 39 countr ...

and was be screened on 9 December 2023. It was released in Austrian cinemas on 13 October 2023.

Reception

On the review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

website, the film has an approval rating of 80% based on 10 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, it has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100 based on 5 reviews, indicating "Mixed or average reviews". Lee Marshall for ''

ScreenDaily ''Screen International'' is a British film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by Media Business Insight, a British B2B media company which also owned ''Broadcast''. The magazine is primarily aimed at those involve ...

'' wrote in review that "A touching tribute to a woman who, von Trotta suggests, pitted a radical desire to question everything against the comfortable certainties of the men who surrounded her." Marco Vito Oddo graded the film B+ and wrote for

Collider A collider is a type of particle accelerator that brings two opposing particle beams together such that the particles collide. Compared to other particle accelerators in which the moving particles collide with a stationary matter target, collid ...

, "When so many biopics end in disasters, it is definitely worth praising a refreshing take on the genre, especially when it focuses on a woman who’s equally complicated and fascinating". Ben Rolph graded the film "A" and wrote for AwardsWatch, "Margarethe von Trotta’s latest film is a graceful triumph of modern European cinema". Davide Abbatescianni, of ''

Cineuropa Cineuropa is an online information portal dedicated to the promotion of European cinema. It publishes daily news, reviews, interviews, and industry reports and maintains a database of information. It is available in four languages: English, Fre ...

'' heavily criticised the film, labelling it as "a rather outdated upper-class drama," which includes some "unintentionally funny" moments. While acknowledging that the director "steers clear of judging the real-life figures and their troubled existences," the way these are portrayed "makes them look like they belong to the endless series of bourgeois characters that have been filling our screens for decades". Similarly to Abbatescianni, ''Variety'''s Jessica Kiang wrote how Vicky Krieps couldn't "save an oldfangled biopic," describing the picture as "a mawkish melodrama more interested in poet and author Bachmann's romantic life than her work".

Accolades

References

External links

*
''Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert''
at Tellfilm *

at Berlinale
''Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert''
at Austrian Film Institute
''Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert''
at Film portal * {{Margarethe von Trotta 2023 films Films directed by Margarethe von Trotta 2020s German films Swiss drama films 2023 drama films 2023 independent films German drama films German independent films 2020s German-language films Austrian drama films Austrian biographical drama films Austrian independent films 2020s biographical films Cultural depictions of Austrian people Luxembourgian drama films Films shot in Vienna Films shot in Luxembourg Max Frisch