Frantz (film)

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Movie
German title Frantz
Original title Frantz
Country of production France , Germany
original language French , German
Publishing year 2016
length 113 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director François Ozon
script François Ozon
(in collaboration with Philippe Piazzo )
production Eric Altmayer , Nicolas Altmayer , Stefan Arndt , Uwe Schott
music Philippe Rombi
camera Pascal Marti
cut Laure Gardette
occupation

Frantz is a feature film by François Ozon from the year 2016 . The first half of the Franco-German co-production is based on the Ernst Lubitsch film The Man Who Driven His Conscience (1932). Mostly conceived in black and white images , the melodrama tells of the encounter between a German (played by Paula Beer ), whose fiancé died in the war, with a French ex-soldier ( Pierre Niney ) shortly after the end of the First World War in Germany.

Frantz premiered in France on August 23, 2016 , while the French theatrical release took place on September 7, 2016. In Germany , the film was released in cinemas on September 29, 2016.

action

Quedlinburg , in 1919: Young Anna regularly visits the grave of her fiancé Frantz, who died in France during the First World War . One day she noticed a young man there who was laying flowers on the grave for two days in a row. The stranger is the young French Adrien. He claims to have been friends with Frantz before the war and that he sorely missed him. They both met in Paris and shared a love for art, especially music. This representation (invented by Adrien) is made believable in the film by staged scenes. Adrien is taken in by Anna and her in-laws, and the young people spend the days together. Adrien finally confesses to Anna that he didn't even know Frantz before the war and that it was rather he who shot Frantz in trench warfare . He had come to Germany to ask for forgiveness from Frantz's relatives. Anna hides this from her parents-in-law, who thanks to Adrien's supposed friendship with Frantz have found inner peace and taken Adrien into their hearts, Adrien claims, however, that she told her in-laws and they have forgiven him. Adrien returns to France relieved.

Adrien's favorite picture in the Louvre: Manet's suicide (the picture is actually in the E. G. Bührle collection , Zurich) and is not a large format like in the film.

Anna is torn because of her affection for Adrien and the knowledge that he shot Frantz. She wants to drown herself in the lake, but is saved. She sends Adrien a letter, but it comes back because the addressee has meanwhile moved away unknown. So Anna goes to France to look for Adrien. During her research in a hospital, she learns that a man with Adrien's last name and the same initial letter A. was being treated there, probably for attempting suicide . When she searches for his name in the patient file, she finds the address of a cemetery. Then she bursts into tears. In the cemetery, however, she sees a different first name on the tombstone and it turns out that this was an uncle of Adrien. Eventually she finds Adrien on his parents' estate. His mother quickly recognizes the affection of the two for each other, but Adrien is supposed to marry his childhood sweetheart Fanny, and he gives in to this wish. When Anna finds out, she leaves broken.

Instead of returning to Germany, Anna upholds the fiction of the friendship between Frantz and Adrien with her in-laws and writes them that she is fine in Paris and that she spends a lot of time with Adrien. In the final shot we see Anna in the Louvre next to a young man who Adrien is similar, before Adrien's favorite picture - The suicides of Manet - seated. When asked whether she also liked the picture, she replied: "Yes - it makes me want to live."

Quote

“I wanted to share about how lies and secrets can help people survive in dramatic times like war and crisis. The lie is a metaphor for our need and our longing for fiction - and therefore also for films. "

- François Ozon

background

Director François Ozon saw the film as the ideal opportunity to describe the fraternal aspect between Germany and France. He emphasizes that his first stay abroad was in Germany and that he is interested in the language, history and culture of the country. “It was very important for me to tell the story from a German point of view, from the side of the losers, from the eyes of those who were humiliated by the Versailles Treaty , so I could depict how Germany was fertile ground for at that time the spreading nationalism. I also wanted to play with classic melodramatic motifs such as guilt and forgiveness, which turn into a decoupling of feelings, ”says Ozon.

Frantz was shot in 2015 in Quedlinburg , Wernigerode and Görlitz as well as in Eymoutiers ( Haute-Vienne ) in France . Ozon decided to shoot his 16th feature film as a director mostly in black and white: “One day I had the idea to show our photos of possible subjects in black and white. As if by a miracle, the motifs became absolutely believable. Paradoxically, black and white enhances realism and authenticity, as we only know this time in black and white, ”says Ozon. The director stated that you could find various of his obsessions in Frantz , but because of the different (German) language, actors and locations he was forced to "reinvent himself".

Paula Beer and Pierre Niney at the performance of Frantz in Paris (September 2016)

According to Ozon's own information, knowledge of German was sufficient to lead the film team. He trusted the actors and asked them to help with the dialogues. He engaged the young actors Paula Beer from Germany and Pierre Niney from France for the leading roles . Beer said he had to prepare two scenes in French within one day for the casting . She would have quickly found a way to communicate with Ozone, and was then invited by the director to Paris to rehearse with Pierre Niney. After a few days, Beer was awarded the role. She then had six weeks to rehearse Anna's part in German and French. During the shoot, Beer and Niney supported each other with problems in the foreign language. While Ozon praised his compatriot as a great character actor who could play in different registers, there was something mischievous and very melancholy about Beer that struck him. Ozon praised her acting spectrum, her credibility and her photogenicity: “She was only twenty years old, but her acting showed great maturity. She could embody the innocence of a girl as well as the strength of a woman. "

The film was produced by the German X Films Creative Pool together with the French Mandarin Production and FOZ . Mars Films and France 2 Cinéma , among others, acted as co-producers in collaboration with Universal Pictures , Canal + , France Télévisions , Warner Bros. and Manon 6 , while other grants from Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung , Filmförderungsanstalt , German Filmförderfonds and the Center national du cinéma et de l 'image animée .

Awards

In 2016, Frantz received an invitation to compete at the 73rd Venice Film Festival , where Ozone competed for the Golden Lion . Paula Beer received the Marcello Mastroianni Prize for best young actress. At the presentation of the German Gilde Film Prize at the Filmkunstmesse Leipzig (September 19-23, 2016), Frantz won the prize for the best international production and prevailed against the nominated entries Pear Cake with Lavender and Eternal Youth .

Frantz received eleven nominations for the French César film award in 2017 , as many as Elle , but only Pascal Marti for best camera won the award. In the same year, two nominations for the European Film Award 2017 followed (Best Actress - Paula Beer, Best Screenplay).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Profile ( Memento of the original from August 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at labiennale.org (accessed August 22, 2016). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.labiennale.org
  2. Release certificate for Frantz . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 161608 / K). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  3. cf. The staff at frantz.x-verleih.de (accessed on August 22, 2016).
  4. Premiere screening of Frantz in France at francois-ozon.com (accessed on August 22, 2016).
  5. Profile at allocine.fr (French, accessed on August 22, 2016).
  6. ^ Ozon et Niney: l'amour plus fort que la guerre . In: La Dépêche du Midi , August 24, 2016, N ° 21746, p. 25.
  7. http://www.zeno.org/Kunstwerke/B/Manet,+Edouard%3A+Selbstm%C3%B6rder at zeno.org (accessed on October 4, 2016).
  8. ^ François Ozon: "History tends to repeat itself" . Interview with Alexandra Seibel. Kurier.at, accessed on December 1, 2016.
  9. a b c d e cf. Information leaflet about the theatrical release of Frantz , X Verleih.
  10. a b Film profile ( memento of the original from 23 August 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at labiennale.org (accessed August 30, 2016). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.labiennale.org
  11. Ozone tour in Eymoutiers on the 21st of September . In: Le Populaire du Center , September 3, 2015, Limoges Edition / Haute Vienne Edition (accessed via the Nexis literature database ).
  12. AlloCine. "Frantz: interview-portrait de la révélation Paula Beer". AlloCiné. Accessed September 11, 2016. http://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18655506.html .
  13. Francois Ozon's new film "Frantz" in the competition in Venice and in Toronto / Special Presentations at x-filme.de, August 18, 2016 (accessed on August 22, 2016).
  14. Film shooting on the Nikolaifriedhof . In: Sächsische Zeitung , August 22, 2015, p. 22.
  15. Pfeiffer, Daniela: Film shoot between graves . In: Sächsische Zeitung , August 28, 2015, p. 14.
  16. ^ Ivonne Sielaff: Much ado about "Frantz" . In: Harzer Volksstimme , September 19, 2015, accessed on September 28, 2016.
  17. Le train vapeur et sa locomotive, stars du cinéma, ont participé au dernier film de François Ozon . In: Le Populaire du Center , February 28, 2016, Haute Vienne Edition (accessed via the Nexis literature database ).
  18. Paula Beer honored as best young actress. In: FAZ.net. September 10, 2016, accessed September 11, 2016 .
  19. Gilde Filmpreise 2016 in Leipzig awarded at agkino.de, September 22, 2016 (accessed on September 28, 2016).
  20. Shortlist for the Gilde Filmpreise 2016 announced at agkino.de, August 16, 2016 (accessed on August 22, 2016).