Paula BEER Franz ROGOWSKI

A Film by CHRISTIAN PETZOLD LOGLINE

Undine works as a historian lecturing on Berlin’s urban development. But when the man she loves leaves her, the ancient myth catches up with her. Undine has to kill the man who betrays her and return to the water. DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

“You humans! You monsters!” Thus begins Ingeborg Bachmann’s narration “Undine Leaves”. Undine is the betrayed woman of the waters. According to the myth, she lives in a lake in the forest.

A man who’s fatefully enamored with a woman, whose love is unrequited and hopeless, who no longer knows what to do with himself or his feelings, who suffers absolute despair... can enter the forest, go to the banks of the lake and cry out Undine’s name.

And she’ll come. And love him. Their love is a pact that may never be betrayed. And if it is betrayed, then the man must die. Then it comes to pass that he who loves and is loved seems easy and free, lovable and desirable once more. In the myth, the previously hopelessly adored woman suddenly be- comes interested in the man again. And he leaves Undine to marry her, his first love. On the night of their wedding, Undine enters the bedroom and embraces the man in a bubble of water that’s going to drown him. “I wept him to death!” she stammers at the scuttling servants before disappearing into the lake in the forest.

Our Undine is a city historian in Berlin, giving guided tours for the Senate Administration for Urban De- velopment. She has just been left and betrayed by someone whose name is Johannes.

Going by the myth, she would take revenge on Johannes and kill him, but Undine defies the myth. She doesn’t want to return to the curse, to the lake in the forest.

She doesn’t want to leave. She wants to love. She meets someone else. And it’s this love story that Undine tells.

Christian Petzold ABOUT THE FILM

Undine (Paula Beer) works in Berlin as a historian thinks she has no choice – until in the moment of and guide to the city‘s development. She has a betrayal, she meets Christoph (Franz Rogowski), small apartment at Alexanderplatz, a master‘s an industrial diver, and unexpectedly falls for him. degree in history, and a freelance contract. But This is a new, happy and innocent love filled with underneath the appearance of her modern city life curiosity and trust. But when Christoph starts to lurks an old myth: if the man Undine loves betrays feel that Undine is running away from something, her, she has to kill him and return to the water she she has to face her curse once and for all. She once came from. So when her lover Johannes (Jacob doesn‘t want to lose this love. Matschenz) leaves her for another woman, Undine INTERVIEW OF CHRISTIAN PETZOLD ABOUT THE FILM UNDINE

Your more recent films all had explicit historical or political backgrounds. With Undine you chose fairytale-material as your point of departure. I don’t know if you can really differentiate so com- pletely. Undine is a story about love, as are Barbara, Phoenix and Transit. But they tell of an impossible love, or a damaged one, or one that perhaps evolves. This time I wanted to make a film in which you see how love develops and remains. And there’s no such thing as an unpolitical story. The political always slips into the narrative.

What’s your connection to the Undine material? At some point in the 90s I read Peter von Matt’s book “Romantic Treachery – The Faithless in Literature”, which has a chapter about the undine myth, and the idea of betrayed love interested me. I knew the undine story from my childhood, but I always remember everything incorrectly. Maybe that’s a prerequisite for writing scripts – a faulty memory, like false testimony... What I did remember well was the sentence undine calls out to the servants of the faithless man whom she has killed: “I wept him to death.” I always like that line of Fouqué’s. That memory got mixed up with other versions, Lortzing’s or Hans-Christian Andersen’s, “The Little Mermaid”, where the same motif takes on a differ- ent form, and at some stage I also read Ingeborg Bachmann’s “Undine Leaves”. I liked the way it’s the Undine who speaks rather than some narrator or man. It’s a woman talking. You could make a film like that, I thought. One that’s about the undine or the undine’s despair. The curse in Ingeborg Bachmann is that men are never faithful because they basically only love themselves. And the breaking of this curse from a female perspective struck me as the right narrative approach; that our undine doesn’t want to go back to the forest lake. That she doesn’t want to kill. There’s a man, Christoph, who’s the first to love her for herself, and it’s a love she’ll fight for. had grown organically in order to build a new flooded valley where a village once stood. Below is center that won’t grow but is dictated. You get the this mysterious, hidden life, the old stories, and sense that railway fanatics gone mad are planning above is modernity, steel – yet both are in the same the Potsdamer Platz. And beneath, in the water, space. That’s how I wanted to construct the story. you can still feel remains of the old magic. It has In the same space. And these cursed creatures, the this Jules Verne character to it, the adventure, the stuff of fairy tales and myths who go about their people welding underwater in a city that actually mischief down below, feature as remnants in the film. went under at this spot. Do you consider Undine a fairytale figure? Your lake is not an enchanted one in the woods We already spoke about Ghosts. The ghost films but rather a reservoir somewhere between ro- are about ghosts who want to become human. manticism and industrialization. The terrorists in The State I Am In want to be fathers The lake we filmed at is near Wuppertal, the region and mothers, they want to have a life. Maybe that’s Did you work your way through all the countless that this, these destroyed pasts, these myth-rem- where I grew up. The Wupper is a river that marks a the underlying theme in all of my films… And maybe versions of the Undine story? nants, are part of our undine story. boundary, a Styx of the industrial age. It’s where you can say that Undine is a fairytale figure who No. The fairy tales you remember, the myths that Thyssen originated – a small smithy on the Wupper wants to become human. And we watch her realize were read to you by your mother – you don’t have In your film Ghosts you focused on the fairytale-­ that became a global corporation because it copied this dream. She’s already human, she wants to re- to reread these. Their world view is stored in your like aspect of berlin – making the tiergarten what at the time was the best steel in the world, main human. When she goes diving with Christoph, memory, and when it comes to writing a story, I behind potsdamer platz seem enchanted. Swiss “blue steel”, and was able to produce it much she suddenly vanishes as if the water were pulling find blurring and clear spots extremely important. The comparison with Ghosts is interesting, it’s also more cheaply here. The industry needed a lot of her into her element – she remembers nothing and The condensation, the abridgement, all that is in based on a fairytale, the Brothers Grimm’s “The energy, so all the Wupper’s tributaries are now says, “No, I don’t want to come back here again”. the narration. The fairytales that were recorded by Burial Shirt”: A child who has died slips out of his dammed for energy or drinking water. And since But the cursed/enchanted world, the mythical world, the Brothers Grimm and so on had been passed on grave every night to sit down with his mother and the industrial age, at the beginning of which they won’t let go. It sticks to her, it’s brutal, it pulls her orally, being told and retold, and, at some point, say, “You have to stop crying for me, otherwise I were built, hadn’t yet developed its own aesthetic, under… The myths and fairytales, men’s myths, leave changing more and more. But a few things remained cannot die”. But the fairytale doesn’t appear in the the structures often look like old churches. It con- Undine a pitiful dearth of leeway. Undine is a woman the same. To me, cinema is more akin to this oral film. It might feature in the little lake in the Tiergar- tains both the dammed water, that energy, and a who needs to escape the work of male projection. tradition than it is to research in the state library. ten that was designed by Lenné – like Fouqué, he too was a romantic. But something happened to the Your Undine is a city historian in berlin, a city city between 2004, when we shot Ghosts, and now. that your film repeatedly shows in an unusual History is changing, as are the legends and myths. perspective – that of a model. Undine is no longer the Undine of Fouqué, but a At the time I was contemplating an undine film, modern woman, albeit one to whom the curse of Christoph Hochhäusler showed me these fantastic the past still sticks. And she does something that is models of Berlin on display at the Berlin City Mu- not part of the old undine myth, she departs. She seum. Berlin is a city built on swamps, one which doesn’t serve the myth of the past but destroys it. basically drained a whole environment to become a city. And it has no myths of its own, it’s an assem- bled, modern city. As a former trade city, it always A larger part of your film plays underwater in imported its myths. I imagined that with the drain- scenes with their very own magic . ing of the swamps, all the myths and stories the Hubertus Siegert’s film Berlin Babylon about Berlin’s travelling merchants brought here were lying around urban redevelopment after the fall of the Wall shows as if on mudflats and slowly drying out. At the industrial divers working in the water basin under same time, Berlin is a city that is erasing more and the Potsdamer Platz construction site. This was once more of its own history. The Wall, that characteriz- the busiest square in Europe, it’s virtually mythical, ing element of Berlin, was torn down in a very brief and these hideous buildings are going to be built period. Our way of dealing with the past and with there. I loved those shots, the diving suits that history in Berlin is brutal. The Humboldt Forum, remind me of Jules Verne, the workers who are too, is a ransacking of the past because the Platz basically dismantling a myth with cutting torches. der Republik is part of Berlin history. And I thought They’re working on the destruction of a center that Is it possible to escape the curse of projection? it’s at just this moment that the curse again takes I’ve always been interested in the people born 100 effect. When you feel your most liberated, that’s years too soon who stand for something that when you’re most vulnerable. The curse of the old hasn’t yet had its day. Maybe Undine is also one world demands an impossible price for her freedom. such character who criticizes her curse too soon But for this instant it’s worth it. She holds on to this and is forced to fight. When she leaves Johannes, moment of freedom so that what she experienced the man who betrayed her, she’s free. She goes remains present. Which is why the film’s last shot home, lies down in bed and listens to “Stayin’ belongs to her. We see the world from her view- Alive”, the song to which she was resuscitated by point. That was extremely important. the man who loves her. That’s when she’s free. But

How did you prepare for the underwater scenes? first time ever, I made a complete storyboard and I watched a lot of films by way of preparation. The very precise shot list for every perspective and most enchanting underwater film I know is Richard movement in those scenes. This was crucial for Fleischer’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. There’s cinematographer Hans Fromm. We were filming a this scene in which James Mason, Captain Nemo, narrative, after all. We couldn’t make decisions on and his crew in their heavy diving suits bury a de- the spur of the moment, as I usually do in shooting-­ ceased individual underwater with a cross of sea- day rehearsals. There was underwater cameraman shells. Kirk Douglas and the other earthlings watch Sascha Mieke, and we had a monitor up above. this, and in this instant the underwater world trans- The actors could hear us through the underwater forms them, too. That’s how I thought our film should P.A., but communication had to be very reduced. be: that we end up 20,000 leagues under the sea, So we worked through all the theoretical aspects beneath today’s Berlin and today’s world with its before the actors went underwater. Sometimes models and explanations, dreams and destruction they’d try out a movement, surface, and we’d dis- – and that for an instant the origins of the models, cuss it briefly. Then we were off, “Scene one, you the origins of this magic become perceptible. two glide through the water and join hands...” We We built this whole underwater world before water shot that, then the question arose: “Do you want was even added. It features archways, plants, to surface or can you still manage the next shot and massive grooved dam walls, the turbine... It was the POVs before we have to change the lighting?” important to me that this world should really exist We deliberately scheduled these scenes for the and that we’d only have to resort to computer ani- start of shooting. They were incredibly tiring, but mation for details. The magic is in the physically also good because they gave us a real push. tangible, the constructed model, as is the case with the models of Berlin we have in the film. It had Did you work with a storyboard for the other to be real when Franz Rogowski and Paula Beer scenes, too? dive down below – they had to be able to descend No, we worked on the choreography of the other through real plants in front of a dam wall and enter scenes in rehearsals. The actors like it when they can a cave. We had to add the catfish using animation – dance, when they can be physical, when they’re you can’t train a fish. But before this work started, not imprisoned by light and marking. And this is the VFX specialists spent five days at our shoot on- when we consider how the camera is to depict a set in the real, underwater world. This served them given dance or even take part in it. What Franz and as a reference for the incredibly complex computer Paula do is always choreographed. We always film animation process. It had to jibe with the magic of in longer sequence shots. We rehearse, then pre- our real underwater world. pare the camera movement and the actors play the whole scene. Then we prepare the second camera Did you rehearse the underwater scenes with movement and the actors do the whole scene again. the actors? After that, I have everything for the scene. They I hardly had any contact with the actors underwater approach the camera, they move away again, I have and couldn’t really rehearse with them. So for the close-ups and long shots, all in a sequence shot. It’s about the actors not exhausting themselves. always present: being young/wanting to be young, That can happen quick, particularly during love but also that experience. And Franz Rogowski is scenes. At some stage the actors are synthesizing certainly the most physical actor in Germany. And it and you can tell. It’s about the moment where not many actors can gaze that way. Franz’ physical there is still curiosity about the other party’s actions. aspect can also be found in what he does with his hands, how he touches things. Those hands are Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski already played very able. With Franz, you always have the impres- in Transit. What do you most like about them? sion that he’s physically perceiving the world and During Transit I thought, “They’re so great togeth- that he takes pleasure in it. er, so intimate, but they’re doing a love story that can’t play out. I’d like to give them a love story that How did you create the breakdown? goes on”. And so, during a lunch break at Mont Two perspectives were important in Undine: Undine’s Ventoux, the pizzeria in the film, I told the two of and the world’s. The film is the story of Undine, and them the Undine story, which was then still in its when she has left the world it becomes the seeker’s nascency. I really enjoyed doing so and noticed story, Christoph’s. And if there’s the world and that they also enjoyed the story. There’s this great someone who looks at the world and goes through physical trust in their interaction, something I’ve the world, you essentially only have those two per- never seen between two actors before. I don’t spectives: one of the seeing person and one of know where it comes from: their every touch, their their view onto the world. There are very few long every glance, all are loaded with trust and respect shots: at the dam wall, of the models… I knew this and incredible openness. We can always discuss was the world and in this world the two lovers drift everything together. Paula Beer is one of those about like fish in an aquarium. very rare actresses who are very young, but at the same time are able to express experiences that The most important thing is to consider who’s nar- others only have much later. And these aspects are rating. Who’s this about, who’s watching here? That’s

the crucial question in cinema. Is the camera the shots we took at the lake are basically pictures watching, is it taking part? Where do I stand? Why that, over a detour via French Impressionism, once am I standing here? These are the questions you more illustrate German Romanticism. But this is constantly have to ask yourself. Of course you can precisely not Caspar David Friedrich; these are not position yourself so things look nice. But that’s not the images of German Romanticism, but rather a shot. We have this scene where Undine and that’s already been broken with light, with resolution. Christoph are lying on a wooden jetty and kissing – I liked that. That’s probably why we looked at more it’s straight out of a French Impressionist painting, pictures by Manet during preparation than by a Manet painting. But we didn’t do the shot be- Caspar David Friedrich. cause of its beauty, but because we used the same shot again later when Franz Rogowski goes into But we can’t quite get away from German Romanti- the water at the end – only then he’s alone and it’s cism, try as we might. So we have to approach it from night. And it’s by contrasting his memory of the a different angle, via the Impressionists, via cinema, romantic image from earlier that the loss of the via Edward Hopper... Undine experiences magic in woman he loves becomes clear. His loneliness this film away from the water. What counted for me becomes apparent through the recollection of was the magic that comes about in the present, that image. We, as narrators, are looking at this through love, and not because everything already Manet picture, and it’s a narrative image, but that’s looks like an enchanted place. The dam at dawn, the because its narrator appears twice. underwater world, the sunken city, the catfish… That all looks great, and it draws you in immediately. French impressionism was a more important But the apartment where Undine lives isn’t an organ- reference point than german romanticism? ically grown, enchanted place – it’s only enchanted I haven’t really given that much thought. Of course by their love. Two lovers who manage to enchant they’re related. If you think about it carefully, all an ugly place with their love – that I find impressive. DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY FILMOGRAPHY CHRISTIAN PETZOLD

Born in 1960, Christian Petzold studied German philology and theater at the Free University of Berlin and subsequently studied directing at the German Film and Television Academy of Berlin between 1988 and 1994.

Film biography: Pilots (1995), Cuba Libre (1996), The Sex Thief (1998), The State I Am In (2001), Something To Remind Me (2002), Wolfsburg (2003), Ghosts (2005), Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), Dreileben – Something Better Than Death (2011), Barbara (2012), Phoenix (2014), Transit (2018) PAULA BEER | Undine

Born in 1995, Paula Beer played the leading role in The latter brought about her international break- The Poll Diaries (2010, dir.: Chris Kraus) at the age through with the award for Best Young Actress at of 14, for which she was awarded the Bavarian Film the Venice Film Festival and nominations for the Award for Best Young Actress. She subsequently César and Prix Lumière in the same category as continued training as an actor parallel to her edu- well as Best Actress at the European Film Awards. cation, studying at London‘s Guildhall School of Her other features include Never Look Away (2018, Music and Drama amongst other institutions. dir.: Florian Henckel von Donnersmark) and The Wolf‘s Call (2019, dir.: Antonin Baudry). For her After The Taste of Apple Seeds (2012, dir.: Vivian leading role in the multiple award-winning TV series Naefe), LUDWIG II (2012, dir.: Peter Sehr, Marie Bad Banks (dir.: Christian Schwochow, Christian Noëlle) and Diplomacy (2014, dir.: Volker Schlön­ Zübert) she was nominated for the German Televi- dorff), she played in The Dark Valley (2014, dir.: sion Award and the Golden Camera, among others, Andreas Prochaska), garnering the Austrian Film and awarded the German Actors Award and the Prize nomination for Best Actress. This was followed Bambi as Actress of the Year 2018. Undine is her by Pampa Blues (2015, dir.: Kai Wessel) and 4 Kings second cooperation with Christian Petzold after (2015, dir.: Theresa von Eltz), before she was given Transit (2018). the title role in François Ozon‘s Frantz (2016).

FRANZ ROGOWSKI | Christoph

Born in 1986, Franz Rogowski has been working Victoria (2015, garnering the Berlinale‘s Silver Bear since 2007 as an actor, dancer and choreographer and the German Film Award in six categories), We in productions of the Theater Zagreb, HAU, the Are Fine (2015, dir.: Henri Steinmetz), Bedbugs Schaubühne in Berlin and the Thalia Theater in (2017, dir.: Jan Henrik Stahlberg), Tiger Girl (2017, Hamburg, among others. He made his cinema de- dir.: Jakob Lass), Michael Haneke‘s Happy End but in 2011 with the leading role in Frontalwatte (2017), Lux - Warrior of Light (2017, dir.: Daniel (2011, dir.: Jakob Lass). This was followed by the Wild), I Was at Home, But (2019, dir.: Angela award-winning Love Steaks (2013, dir.: Jakob Lass), Schanelec; Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director) for which he was awarded the Munich International and, currently, A Hidden Life (2019, dir.: Terrence Film Festival‘s Acting Prize. Franz Rogowski contin- Malick). In 2018, Franz Rogowski was the “Euro- ued his theater work at the Schaubühne in Berlin pean Shooting Star”; with IN The Aisles (2018, dir.: and the Münchner Kammerspiele, among others, Thomas Stuber) he won the German Film Award where he was a permanent ensemble member “Lola” for Best Leading Actor. For his lead roles in from 2015 to 2017. In 2019 he was awarded the this film and Transit (2018), his first collaboration Ulrich Wildgruber Prize. His other cinematic works with Christian Petzold, he was awarded the include Sebastian Schipper‘s multiple-award winning Günther Rohrbach Film Prize. UNDINE A film by CHRISTIAN PETZOLD

Undine Paula Beer Christoph Franz Rogowski Monika Maryam Zaree Johannes Jacob Matschenz

Director & Scriptwriter Christian Petzold Cinematographer Hans Fromm, bvk Editor Bettina Böhler Production Designer Merlin Ortner Costume Designer Katharina Ost Casting Simone Bär Sound Andreas Mücke-Niesytka Sound Designer Dominik Schleier Benjamin Hörbe Bettina Böhler Re-Recording Mixer Martin Steyer Make-up Artist Scharka Cechova Franziska Röder Gaffer Christoph Dehmel Assistant Director Ires Jung Production Manager Dorissa Berninger THE WOMAN Executive Producer Anton Kaiser Commissioning Editor Caroline von Senden Andreas Schreitmüller Olivier Père FROM THE WATER Rémi Burah Co-Producer Margaret Menegoz The Undine Myth Producer Florian Koerner von Gustorf Michael Weber

Motifs relating to the Undine myth can already be ings. Goethe praised the text but made it clear that found back in Greek mythology. The word “Undenae” he would have made more of the material; Lortzing TECHNICAL DETAILS appears for the first time in a script of Paracelsus (1816) and E.T.A. Hoffmann (1845) adapted it for published posthumously in 1566: Undine - from the opera. Original title: Undine | International title: Undine the Latin unda, “wave”, is a water sprite in human Year: 2020 | Duration: 90 min form who can only attain an immortal soul through New interpretations can be found in the fairytales Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 | Format: 2K | Sound: 5.1 marriage to a human. Should she come back into of Hans-Christian Andersen (“The Little Mermaid”, Original Language: English, French contact with her element after her marriage, she 1836) and of Oscar Wilde (“The Fisherman and his Country of Production: Germany, France must return to it. Should her husband remarry, he Soul”, 1891). Edgar Allen Poe translated Fouqué‘s Production Companies: Schramm Film Koerner & Weber must die. Paracelsus made reference to the French novella into English. In Jean Giraudoux‘s “Ondine” Co-production companies: Les films du Losange Melusine saga (12th century) and the German (1939), the water spirits engender Undine‘s hus- With support of: Canal+, Ciné+, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Stauffenberg saga (14th century). band‘s death and ensure that she won‘t be able to Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, BKM Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, FFA Filmförderungsanstalt, remember him. Hans-Werner Henze created the CNC Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, In the 19th century, German Romanticism returned ballet “Undine” in 1957, and Ingeborg Bachman‘s Deutsch-Französisches Koproduktionsabkommen, to the subject, as can be seen in Arnim‘s “The Boy‘s “Undine Leaves” was published in 1961. As for cin- Deutscher Filmförderfonds Magic Horn” (1806–1808). In 1811, Friedrich de ema, Neil Jordan was the last to adapt the material la Motte Fouqué published the fairytale novella in ONDINE (2009). And in Christian Petzold‘s “Undine”, which cites Paracelus and Egolf von case, the Undine story, first heard in childhood, Stauffenberg as sources and which in turn became was brought back to life on reading Peter von the inspiration for countless variations and rework- Matt‘s book “Romantic Treachery”. Photography: Marco Krüger, Christian Schulz, Hans Fromm (Filmstills) [email protected] Tel: +4915774749724 Gordon Spragg, Laurin Dietrich,Michael Arnon WOLF Consultants INTERNATIONAL PUBLICIST Follow uson www.the-match-factory.com [email protected] phone +49221539709-0 Domstr. 60|50668Cologne/Germany The Match Factory GmbH WORLD SALES

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