Lou Andreas-Salomé (film)
Lou Andreas-Salomé is a biography by Cordula Kablitz-Post , which was released in German cinemas on June 30, 2016 and has meanwhile also shown in Austria, Switzerland, France and the USA. The film tells about the writer and psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé .
action
- 1933
The writer and psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Salomé (72) lives ill, lonely and threatened by the National Socialists in Göttingen . But when the 40-year-old German studies specialist Ernst Pfeiffer, who reminds her of her great love Rainer Maria Rilke , enters her life, she slowly blossoms again. Pfeiffer, who worships Lou, pretends to seek psychoanalytic help for a friend, in the process of which he promises help with his own marital problems. In return, he helps her write her memoirs. In flashbacks, the emotional highlights of her life come back to life. But Lou doesn't want to tell Pfeiffer everything ...:
Lou von Salomé was born in St. Petersburg in 1861 as the youngest child and only daughter after five brothers. She grew up in an upper-class environment, but felt like an outsider. She has a difficult relationship with the strict mother, but she loves her father all the more. Lou loses her faith in God at an early age. The father dies when she is 16; Lou becomes rebellious: She refuses to give confirmation and instead looks for a private tutor for philosophy, Pastor Hendrik Gillot, who will replace the enthusiastic girl with God and her father. But the 40-year-old Gillot falls in love with Lou, even though he is married and has two children her age. A traumatic assault with a marriage proposal ensues - Lou hastily leaves St. Petersburg. She resolves never to marry and to live her life solely for her spiritual perfection. Men should never get too close to her again.
Lou is happy to be able to study at the University of Zurich. There she learns and studies obsessively and eventually falls ill with severe pneumonia. She should recover in Rome. She met the philosopher Paul Rée in the salon of the women's rights activist Malwida von Meysenbug . After Lou refuses his proposal, the two become friends. Paul Rée introduces Lou to his good friend Friedrich Nietzsche , who recognizes her as his “sibling brain”. Like Paul Rée, he falls miserably in love with Lou. But Lou is able to convince the two of the idea of a platonic flat-sharing community for three, in which they should study together.
A stay in Tautenburg with Nietzsche ends in a fiasco for Lou : Friedrich's sister Elisabeth sees Lou as a threat to her own plans for life, is morally indignant and drives a wedge between her brother and Lou.
Paul Rée and Lou do without the fickle Nietzsche and live as a couple in Berlin. But Paul Rée suffers from his unhappy love for Lou, is jealous and controls it. While Lou's first novel was a success, Rée's academic career did not advance. Lou can't stand the living situation anymore. When she met the orientalist Friedrich Carl Andreas , she accepted his proposal on the condition that the marriage would never be consummated. Andreas agrees. Paul Rée moves out of the shared apartment, deeply injured, they never see each other again.
Lou focuses on her writing. She has achieved her goal in life of spiritual perfection, but is not happy. Her bronchitis has become chronic, but she is not sparing herself. She works under duress and writes one book after the other.
When the still unknown 21-year-old poet Rainer Maria Rilke woos the 36-year-old successful writer, she initially underestimated him. She likes him and encourages him, but the young man finally knows how to break open her hard shell with persistent wooing and get her to break her vow never to fall in love again. Lou is now apparently at peace with herself and the world. But her love for the 15-year-old has no future: Rilke clings to and appropriates Lou, he wants her as lover, muse and mother. His mental health problems get worse. Lou eventually ends the relationship.
As if to numb herself, she begins to live out her newly discovered love life with frequently changing affairs . She puts her life in danger when she finally tries to break off an unwanted pregnancy by jumping from a tree.
- Vienna 1911
Lou seeks advice from Sigmund Freud and wants to learn psychoanalysis himself . With Freud on the couch, she finally realizes the trauma that has burdened her since her youth.
- Göttingen 1933
A close friendship has developed between Lou and Pfeiffer. A conflict arises when Pfeiffer confronts her with unpleasant questions and an observation that pinpoints her difficult relationship with men. She no longer wants to see Pfeiffer and now tries herself on the typewriter - but her eyes are too bad. Lou is relieved when Pfeiffer tries to get in touch with her again. When Lou receives a summons from the Gestapo , they burn their all-too-personal diaries and letters together, because Lou's memoirs are now written - at least what posterity is supposed to know.
criticism
“The revealing portrait of an educated, self-confident and emancipated woman, depicted in many layers, while the male figures look rather pale. Incidentally, a little treatise on how to tell and work through your own life story. "
The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.
Web links
- Lou Andreas-Salomé in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Information about Lou Andreas-Salomé - How I love you, puzzle life by Avantimedia
- Lou Andreas-Salomé on the website of the Austrian Film Institute
- Lou Andreas-Salomé compiled by Kazem Sadegh-Zadeh
- Lou Andreas-Salomé compiled by Ursula Welsch
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Lou Andreas-Salomé . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; test number: 160151 / K).