German director Margarethe von Trotta’s Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert is a fascinating if somewhat short-fused biopic on the life, loves and acrimonies of poet Austrian poet and author Ingeborg Bachmann who made a huge impact on German literature in the 1950s and 60s and was even nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Providentially the film is more into Ms Bachmann’s adventurous love life: she seems to be as eager to seize the day as Marathi actress Hansa Wadkar on whose love life Shyam Benegal made that stirring steam pot of a film Bhumika which was buoyed by a stellar Smita Patil.
The German actress Vicky Krieps is enormously dedicated to her role as Ingeborg Bachmann. For those who had never heard of her before this film—I confess I hadn’t—the film is intimately illuminating, showing the protagonist in three very different relationships with three infatuated men.
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Two of them, composer Hans Werner Henze(Basil Eidenbenz) and writer Adolf Opel (Tobias Resch) simply dote on her. Hans repeatedly offers to marry Ingeborg. She smilingly rebuffs his offer each time. Adolf a much younger man is incurably besotted. He even fulfils Ingeborg’s lifelong wish to visit the desert where she has herself buried in the sand to her head while Adolf watches indulgently.
Please note: this was way before the social media dictated human behaviour. Ingeborg Bachmann belongs to the internet and not the 1960s when she took the literary world and its favourite designers by storm. The film wears a sumptuous look. The dress, the conduct and the era come alive effortlessly. But the presentation seems way too taken up with its protagonist’s libido.
Paradoxically, there isn’t enough bedroom intimacy in the execution even when there are more than two people in the bedroom. This coyness when it comes to brasstacks saps Ingeborg’s film of its propelling juice. All we see is talk, courtship and flirtation. When does she actually get down to business?
What provides an emotional heft to make up for the lack of physical intimacy is the character Swiss playwright Max Frisch,played by an excellent German actor Ronald Zehrfeld. Ingeborg’s stormy togetherness with playwright Maz Frisch, his jealous violent resentment at her popularity and his relative anonymity are excellently executed.
One of the things Ingeborg hates about Max is the constant tapping of his typewriter. Ingeborg Bachmann: Journey Into The Desert avoids friction in bringing a stormy relationship to us.