1788: Charlotte von Lengefeld, the daughter of an impoverished noble family in Thuringia, has returned from Weimar to her hometown, Rudolstadt – mainly to the delight of her unhappily married sister, Caroline of Beulitz. The two girls had once vowed to share everything. One day, Friedrich Schiller, who has been expelled from Württemberg, appears in Rudolstadt, and the two sisters take their oath seriously. They begin a love triangle, which benefits from Charlotte’s marriage to the poet. But this lifestyle turns out to be fragile. Dominik Graf’s film is a mix of documented fact and fiction; a private utopia can be just as difficult to achieve as the political situation unfolding in the background – the French Revolution.
In this aesthetic tour-de-force, one of Germany’s foremost “auteurs,” Dominik Graf (
Dreileben,
A Map of the Heart), examines a passionate love triangle that may have been one of Schiller’s most closely guarded secrets. The actors Hannah Herzsprung (
Four Minutes), Henriette Confurius and Florian Stetter (
Sophie Scholl) demonstrate the full range of their artistry, and, through their eloquence and expressiveness, raise this gorgeously shot film to the level of a timeless study of love.
Dominik Graf, Germany/Austria, 2014, 139 Min.
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