Maren Ade

PRECISE OBSERVATION

A portrait of Maren Ade

Maren Ade is a rare diamond on the German film scene, for she demonstrates a quality not generally attributed to the Germans, or at least to German films: she has a sense of humor.

Her films are full of amusing and even absurd situations, which are occasionally difficult for the audience to digest – until laughter pro­vides a release. Usually, we laugh along with the main characters and not at them. It is a quiet, fine, almost invisibly subtle humor, incon­ceiv­ably different from those vulgar, thigh-slapping gags that many con­sider the sole form of German mirth; a humor that does not exclude the possibility of laughing at something that is also rather sad. An adult humor, but humor, nonetheless: “You have to admit that my characters realize when they are behaving foolishly in a particular situation. That is what interests me about humor. Something deliberated. I am aware of most of the situations that my characters experience, I have encountered them personally in a similar form. That is what I make concrete, heightening it. I find there is no other way to create humorous scenes in particular.”
When Ade’s feature film debut The Forest for the Trees – a low-budget production for only €160,000 made in 25 shooting days – was presented to an international audience in Toronto and at Sundance, the effect was astonishing, but also a liberating experience. A small, quiet German film success in a sphere far away from the pushy, prestigious film world. The film centers on a young teacher who moves from her provincial home to the city in order to begin her first job in a school. This also represents a new beginning in her private life. We observe her first attempts to explore the new environment, which frequently go hand in hand with embarrassment, making us laugh at first – she is quite lovable in a gauche kind of way.

Gradually, however, the film’s tragedy is revealed: Ade shows the audience her main character as an outsider who grows more and more isolated and develops a scurrilous, even sick side. Far from all stereotypes and with no false sentimentality, here Ade succeeds in creating a wonderful “comedie humaine” full of depth.

“To date, I have always started with a character whose inner life I investigated for some time. I am then able to extract a narrative from his or her desires, longings and fears. While still searching, I am tuned into the world around me, enjoy observing people, let myself be led by what I meet in the way of stories, people – and films, of course.”

Such exer­cises in observation sometimes develop into ideas and screen­plays. At the same time, Ade emphasizes that her characters often reflect aspects of her own person: “It’s not usually until later that I recognize how many links there are between the characters and me personally.”

Ade always wanted to tell her own stories in the cinema. “Even as a child, I always enjoyed writing.” The fact that she applied to the Production class at the Munich University of Television & Film in her early twenties, after a long period as an intern in production, had more “to do with the fact that I wasn’t bold enough to try direction, but I did actually want to do it.”

Two years later, after Ebene 9, Ade’s first short film as a director – a suspense film, the story of a couple with Laura Tonke and Frank Giering in the main roles – had run at the Hof Film Festival, the film acad­emy recognized her talent and enabled her to transfer to the Direction class. At the same time, she founded her own production company together with fellow student Janine Jackowski. The two of them continue to run this today: “We have been working together very well for almost ten years now.”

Ade enjoys her sometimes strenuous double role as producer and director, and is unwilling to choose between them: “The two merge in a complementary fashion in my case, I think. Production and direction belong together; they should be tackled eye to eye. It has an atmospheric and practical impact on the film when decisions are made together, thinking from both perspectives. Sometimes, of course, you do find yourself in a predicament.”

After her success with The Forest for the Trees, Ade spent some time researching for a documentary film which was not realized.

Over the last two years, Ade has been working on her latest feature film: Alle Anderen (“Everyone Else”, both working titles) is about relationships among the thirty-somethings, recounting the story of a couple on holiday, the division of roles and power structures, the competition between more modern and rather traditional models of relationships. Nevertheless, the Maren Ade quality is back again: precise observation, a distanced view of modern life despite her person­al sympathies, and a clear-sighted understanding of curiosities and the absurd, even to the point of everyday satire. “The idea was to make a film with a couple as its main protagonists – a film that drew its suspense from the unique, complicated configuration that can only be generated by two people interacting.”

The 44 days of shooting followed a lot of preparation together with the main actors and her cameraman Bernhard Keller, who was also the cameraman for various other successful films including Gegen­ueber, Fallen, Sehnsucht and Falscher Bekenner. “Excellent cooperation: im­ages are what make the cinema, after all.”

Ade believes that cinematic role models are less important to her than to some other directors: “I have a very emotional, concrete inter­est in the cinema. Of course I really enjoy watching films and spend time doing so, but there are no definite role models, and to be quite honest, I still have to catch up on some classics of film history. I didn’t discover ’watching films’ until I left the film academy.”

After putting the final touches to the film, Ade will be concentrating her energies on the production company again: “Right now, we are in the process of developing our company and have initiated several projects. We value established connections, and intense, open co­operation between production and direction is one of our leading prior­ities.” Like Sonja Heiss, also a fellow student from Munich, whose successful film Hotel Very Welcome was produced by Komplizen Film. “That success creates a bond, naturally – it is confirmation that encourages us to continue.”

Then she intends to make another film of her own: “The challenge when making Alle Anderen was to master a delicate psychological dramaturgy, so I may be looking for a more powerful story next time. As I have the feeling that I ought to write it myself, it will probably take some time.”