Mahler on the couch
Mahler on the Couch is a German-Austrian fiction film from 2010. It is about the encounter between the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler . The composer consulted Freud because of the infidelity of his wife Alma Mahler-Werfel .
action
In the summer of 1910, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud interrupted his vacation in Sicily because the composer Gustav Mahler asked him for help with marital problems. Mahler himself shows his last inhibitions before the meeting because he considers his marriage to be a happy one, but then reveals to Dr. Freud that his wife, Alma Mahler, who was nineteen years his junior, betrayed him. Mahler's descriptions in the following therapy are supplemented by statements from people close to the Mahler couple.
In a flashback, Mahler tells how he visits Alma in the sanatorium where she is staying for the cure. When she introduces him to the architect Walter Gropius, he at first does not suspect anything; Mahler only learns of Alma's relationship with Gropius when he reads a love letter from Gropius to Alma that was inadvertently addressed to him. Gropius asks Mahler to release Alma because she deserves an age-appropriate life; However, Alma herself is unable to leave Mahler and asks Gropius to wait for her.
When Freud confronts Mahler with the question of whether he himself was to blame for Alma's infidelity, Mahler tells in the next session about how he and Alma met. Despite the reservations of those around her against a much older man, Alma wants to marry the composer. Shortly after the engagement, Alma was shocked when Mahler asked her to stop composing and to adjust to his needs, but Alma complied. Alma soon becomes pregnant and gives birth to daughter Maria Anna, called "Putzi"; soon afterwards the birth of the second daughter Anna Justine, called "Gucki". A turning point came when Mahler's activity as artistic director at the Vienna State Opera ended in 1907 and the family moved to America. A stroke of fate hits the family when their daughter Maria Anna dies of scarlet fever .
Freud brings out Alma's reaction to Mahler's discovery of the love letter from Mahler's subconscious: Alma explains to Mahler that she is no longer willing to subordinate her needs to his person and that she wants to leave him. In the end, Alma explains that she wants to grow through Mahler and asks his forgiveness. At the end of therapy, Freud explains that it took Alma's affair to open Mahler's eyes.
A little later Mahler experienced a triumphant success with his eighth symphony ; Sigmund Freud and Walter Gropius are also present at the premiere. Mahler dedicates the "Eighth" to his wife Alma and advocates the publication of her compositions. Shortly afterwards Mahler, already marked by his illness, travels to America with Alma and dies in 1911 after returning to Vienna due to illness.
Reviews
"Undecided between artist drama and parody, gender struggle and psychoanalysis cabaret, the film remains far too vague in relation to its subject and is also woodcut-like in the figure drawing."
Awards
When Austrian Film Awards there were in 2011 an award for Barbara Romaner as Best Female Actress and for Caterina Czepek in the category Best Costume .
Web links
- Mahler on the couch in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Mahler on the couch at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of release for Mahler on the couch . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2010 (PDF; test number: 122 385 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Mahler on the couch . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Mahler on the couch. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 31, 2018 .