Vicky Krieps broke into cinema fifteen years ago with the short film X on a Map and, since then, this 40-year-old Luxembourg actress, endowed with ethereal beauty, has become an essential part of European arthouse cinema. In just seven years, since she became known to the general public in The Invisible Thread, by Paul Thomas Anderson, she has recently specialized in historical roles. From Karl Marx's wife in Young Karl Marx to her acclaimed performance as Sissi in The Rebel Empress, to her Queen Anne of Austria in the French blockbuster The Three Musketeers. Her new challenge is in the shoes of the Austrian poet and writer Ingeborg Bachmann under the orders of Margarethe von Trotta in Journey to the Desert, a film that arrived this Friday in Spanish theaters after passing through the official section of the Berlin Festival last year. past.
The story focuses on a very specific stage in the life of this outstanding German-language writer of the 20th century, who died at the age of 47 as a result of burns from a fire, the origin of which has never been well clarified. Specifically, at the time when she meets the famous playwright Max Frisch, a relationship that ended badly and led her to suffer depression from which she would be cured thanks to a trip to the Egyptian desert. "It is a paradox that women as strong and independent as Tina Turner, Nina Simone or Whitney Houston ended up in a relationship with toxic men who oppressed and mistreated them," declares Krieps.
"If you want to tell a woman that she is wonderful, independent and strong, it will take you a long time to convince her. But if you want to tell her that she is weak, it won't take you that long. It's a phenomenon that has a lot to do with how women have been educated to throughout the ages, but I have always been amazed at how great female minds have submitted in this way. And she adds: "It's as if women sometimes don't allow ourselves to be independent, or rather, we don't want to use the independence we have."
When Bachmann meets Frisch, she is a well-known and respected artist. A star who has already conquered the male-dominated bastion of German-language literature with her poetry. Frisch seduces her, says he admires her and invites her to live with him in Zurich. "Men don't know women. That's why it's important that they represent themselves," he assures her. "You will never be unhappy with me," he promises her charmingly.
She was a free soul, an independent woman who ended up facing the jealousy of a man 15 years older who did not respect her space. "I think Ingeborg thought that Frisch would really respect her, that he was a very intelligent man. But he didn't turn out to be strong enough and ended up becoming an idiot." The film does not mention that Ingeborg's parents were avowed Nazis, something that disgusted the writer. "She knew that very everyday words can become a weapon of mass destruction. That's what the Nazis did. They used words, created propaganda the world had never seen before, and suddenly they were in control of the people. She was aware of the exact weight of each word, of how it could save us or condemn us. There was a lot of pain in her words. And at the same time, her thirst and obsessive faith in utopia also intervened, something that I also share," confesses the performer, who admired Bachmann's work since high school.
That's why when Von Trotta, who has already captured the lives of other unique women such as Hannah Arendt and Rosa Luxemburg on the big screen, sent her the script, she did not hesitate to accept the proposal. "I found it incredible how an 83-year-old woman was able to write in such a concise way. And she also captured the idea of playing a woman who suffers from being considered independent."
Ingeborg always said she didn't want to get married. She believed that marriage was "an institution incompatible with a woman who works, thinks and acts freely." "Fascism always begins between man and woman," she said. "What she observed is that fascism can happen at home and it often starts in the little things. And as long as we don't realize that we will never understand the bigger picture and that's actually a really great thing that she did and at that time she helped people to change their way of thinking.
Krieps vindicates the figure of Bachmann beyond her role as poet and writer: "She should also be remembered as a true thinker of her time. For me, what she writes is very philosophical. But at the time she was not recognized for it." The film moves in two temporal spaces, that of her relationship with Frisch and her subsequent escape to the desert in the company of journalist Adolf Opel, a place in which she discovers herself, wishes to bury herself in the sand and experiences a sexual encounter with three men at a time. "For a brief moment she felt really free from the chains of her super brain, which was really incredible. I think Margarethe needed this scene because she grew up in a time when a woman couldn't have these kinds of relationships. It was a scene a little unreal but something beautiful because it made him feel that freedom that he longed for so much.
Krieps maintains that Bachmann "was very, very insecure and putting on makeup and dressing elegantly helped her overcome that insecurity. Like a disguise. She loved to be loved and love. She loved to have fun. But in her time, she couldn't be a woman and enjoy of their sexuality. The actress believes that there is a lot of mystery around the character she has played. In fact, "I feel like I'm also a mystery to myself." "Exploring other characters," he admits, "helps me get to know myself a little more. But there are times when I don't want to go any further. I prefer not to prepare too much for some roles because I feel like I have to stop if I discover very dark areas."
The invisible thread opened the doors of Hollywood for him. Still, Krieps preferred to return to Europe. "Intuition told me not to stay in Hollywood. And I don't regret it. The films I have made in Europe help me find my voice and my place in this profession. They make me feel freer. And in Hollywood I didn't feel that freedom in any moment".
