FÜR MIRIAM - ein Film von Lars-Gunnar Lotz

Interviews

Interview with Lars-Gunnar Lotz

How did you come across this topic?

I had been looking for some time already for a story which deals with guilt and atonement in a human and realistic way. These words have something mystical. And in my Christian education, this topic was always discussed seriously. But I also wanted to know how this could have an impact in normal life. Then I met the script writer Anna Praßler who came up with the basic idea. She had herself experienced a similar story in her personal life. And so we developed the story together.

The hidden anxieties and yearnings of the protagonists are part of the basic conflict in the film FOR MIRIAM. To what extent do the protagonists reflect German society?

It was important to me to show what people hold onto these days. There is the religious belief of the student Lukas. Or on the other hand, the mathematics, the science, of the main protagonist - something that never changes. I wanted to know to what extent such anchors would hold or what happens when they start to get fragile and don't have the stable basis any more which had been used for leaning on and which was expected to give support. I don't know whether we can speak here in general of a society, but I do feel more than ever the yearning for orientation and support. And in our story, the two protagonists find this at the end in each other, at least in that moment.

Dealing with death is another important topic of this film. What importance does this have for you, a son of a pastor?

When you grow up with the idea that after death not everything will be over but that life can go on, then this makes you deal with death in a more relaxed way. Nevertheless, the incertitude about what exactly this should look like stays. But that doesn't preoccupy me so much because there won't be a satisfying answer to it anyway. What hurts me more is the question, why he or she? That all feels like arbitrariness and that's terrible. I think the main protagonist feels the same. Why am I driving this car? And why does it hit this young girl of all people?

Is it your intention to provoke with the relationship between a teacher and her student?

Right from the start, I tried to see the two protagonists without their status and understand them in their pain and their yearnings. It increases the drama of the story that they are in a teacher and student relationship. But basically, a woman who feels guilty meets a boy who thinks she is guilty. Nobody in either of their environments thinks the same as they do. So they need each other and only the two of them can understand each other. This leads to their close relationship, be it harsh and violent like at the beginning or tender and loving like at the end.

What do you plan to do next?

Right now, my script writer Anna Praßler and I are in a phase of developing ideas for the film for my final exam, a 90-minute film.

Interview with Anna Praßler

Why this topic? How did you come across this?

An accident, a coincidence, and our world goes to pieces, our life is out of balance. Something remains - guilt, pain, to say it mathematically, a remainder which unites victim and culprit. These alleged fixed categories are actually brittle and open, liable to change. That's what I wanted to show. Some years ago, my mother was partly guilty in a car accident, similar to that which I used for the initiating moment in FOR MIRIAM. Finally that's how the narrative situation developed of a woman who feels a subjective guilt and for which there is no objective equivalent. Can we resolve such an asymmetry when neither the ratio gives any answer nor the religion? What meaning can the "inequality" have for me and my well-structured existence? These are the questions I wanted to raise.

When writing this, did you have a specific concept which you concentrated on?

The protagonists are the most important. In FOR MIRIAM, I emanated from the central conflict of the main protagonist which quickly led me to the plot's frame because I got totally engaged in her perspective. In order to concretise and refine the story, I had to get to know the protagonists better and had to penetrate them psychologically, empathise much more and more gently with them and completely understand them and want to understand them. Where do they come from and where are they drawn to? What are their yearnings? What do they feel and how can this be translated into pictures? Based on this, the story developed organically.

With which films or scripts can FOR MIRIAM be compared?

FOR MIRIAM is a realistic, unsentimental and up-to-date melodrama which abandons the excesses the genre is often accused of. Like in the modern melodramas of the Danish director Susanne Bier and the scripts of Anders Thomas Jensen (e.g. OPEN HEARTS, 2002), the emotional strength of FOR MIRIAM is rooted in emotional observation and in a cautious narrative, in small gestures and complex protagonists. Also, thematically there is a connection to the incomprehensible and the longing for salvation and hope. Also, 21 GRAMS (by Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo Arriaga, 2003) deals with this.

Which projects do have right now in the pipeline?

At the moment I'm developing the script for the final-exam film of Lars-Gunnar Lotz, an ensemble drama which consistently follows up the existential questions of FOR MIRIAM. A second long film project, my final exam script, tells a historical story of migration in a new and pure perspective. Three sisters, "guest-workers" from northern Italy, and their ever changing relationship to each other, stand at the centre of this melodrama which spans the 70s in West Germany.

Interview with Franziska Petri

What appealed to you particularly about the script FOR MIRIAM and about the protagonist Karen Mertens?

When I first got the script FOR MIRIAM, I only wanted to have a quick look at it but immediately got hooked on it. I read the book in only half an hour I believe and was deeply moved by it. That was the first that counted: it was indeed a good book. Then I met a young but very committed student of film direction who had a clear idea of what he wanted to do. And of course, there was this part: very different for me, the world of the mathematics teacher, but therefore also very appealing to me. But primarily, I was interested in the woman whose universe collapses from one moment to the next, who has nothing left to hold on to and who gets into a life crisis which also makes it possible to rediscover herself.

Are there any similarities between the protagonist Karen Mertens and yourself?

The protagonist doesn't have much in common with me as a private person. Only the means with which I play this role, the fantasy and emotions, are mine.

How was the teamwork with the very young actor Vincent Redetzki?

To make a film with a 16-year old colleague was on the one hand great because like this it was a very authentic moment. On the other hand, I feared that it might go too far, beyond expectations. I knew one had to be very responsible with this. But from the start, there was a very trusting and respectful relationship between us. And therefore, I think we managed to do it quite well.

How was it for you to work together with a relatively inexperienced young film director with this difficult topic?

It was a really nice experience to work with Lars, to see how he caught fire and how he got his whole home town engaged in it. In the run-up to the film, we prepared ourselves very well. We went through every scene, tried out things, discovered new things and so everything was clear on the set. Both of us knew where we wanted to go and we did it. He knows how to get good people together and create trust. That's important.