Luise

Alsace, October 1918. In another month the Great War will be over – and the region lost to the political winds once more. Of course, Luise, living alone on a small farm since her mother died, cannot know this, and neither can Hélène, who seeks shelter with her after having killed a soldier, nor Hermann, who’s following Hélène as he’s chased by the authorities for the murder she committed. The trio represents the tensions and potentials that mark Alsace: Luise is Alsatian, and speaks all three languages of the territory; Hélène is French; Hermann is German, and both speak merely their respective mother tongues. An officer searching for Hermann adds another twist: he is of Alsatian descent but identifies as German and even serves in the Imperial Army – at a time when most Alsatian men served in the Navy to avoid finding themselves in fratricidal confrontations.

These are tragic figures in a world of unclear, fragile, shifting boundaries and identities – which includes everything, from the most public to the most intimate… A stunning, marvelously nuanced chamber drama anchored in David Herbert Lawrence’s pansexual 1921 novella The Fox. A true jewel of classical filmmaking at its most restrained and refined!

– Olaf Möller

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