L’amour, l’argent, l’amour

When a director goes looking for the answer to the question of what love is, he is in danger of falling into banal traps. And if the story is about the relationship between a prostitute and an unemployed layabout, then clichés seem inevitable. L’amour, l’argent, l’amour however avoids these pitfalls with much invention. More than a feature, the film became a kind of experimental road-movie in which the poetry of the images envelop indescribable feelings.Gröning chose two fairly unknown actors, Sabine Timoteo and Florian Stetter, who play the young prostitute Marie and the impulsive freebooter David. Marie and David meet in the street and fall in love. Together with the dog Kurt, they set off in an old car looking for true happiness. On the way their love is put to the test in all manner of ways.L’amour, l’argent, l’amour is a contemporary fairy-tale about true love that conquers everything: cold, hunger, poverty and violence. This fairy-tale character is emphasised by the experimental images and the soundtrack: scenes lasting minutes in which landscapes race past give plenty of room to play complete compositions. At other moments, Gröning leaves the sound out and all attention is focused on the pictures. For her performance as Marie, Sabine Timoteo won the Bronze Leopard for Best Actress at the Locarno Film Festival.