Director's Portrait

Although she is the “family filmmaker” among young German directors, there is no sign of the quiet life in Neele Leana Vollmar’s work. In her film families, either the children or the parents are prone to depression, as a rule the family members are ashamed of each other, and talking to one another is the exception. Why does she like to plumb the depths of family life so much, driving her dysfunctional family members to the fringe of madness?

When she is asked the reason for this, the lanky director from Bremen only laughs and shakes her head. “No, no, no. My own family is a dream family,” she assures us. They have a close relationship; her parents know almost everything about her. “It is precisely because things have always been so great for me that I look for the skeletons in the closet.” However, her mother is a little to blame for Vollmar’s favorite theme. After all, she showed her daughter Ingmar Bergman films at an early age: an object lesson in complicated souls and the inspiration for film material that Vollmar has already made into her specialty – from the hysterical short film My Parents to her tragicomic feature Peaceful Times. This film version of the novel was launched in German cinemas in September and the international premiere took place at the 32nd World Film Festival in Montreal shortly before that.

She even succeeds in recounting people’s fears and tragic events in a light, laconic tone: Vollmar’s films are suited to an age in which life’s plans are becoming more and more complicated and the contradictions in almost every biography are evident. Her characters seem to say – so why don’t you tell me, what exactly is normal?

These films appear to tread lightly, but they are also profound. And they touch people outside Germany: My Parents won three prizes in Clermont-Ferrand in 2004. It is not surprising: when petit-bourgeois parents recreate the illusion of a once happy marriage and actually find themselves and each other in the process, the idea has considerable potential for identification in any country. “They are situations that everyone has experienced at some time,” Vollmar says of her films. She loves the situation comedy that develops in relationships, but: “The story is always the most important thing, the laughter comes second.” Vollmar searches for poetry in everyday life: “I want my viewers to immerse themselves in the film for one or two hours, and for each person to leave the cinema with his own story afterwards.”

Her most lavish project to date, Peaceful Times is set in the Germany of the 1960s: the Striesow family have escaped from the GDR. Irene is still haunted by her memories of the East and her husband Dieter is a big dreamer, longing for America – the two could scarcely be less alike. The minor and major crises in life – as often in Vollmar’s films – are set off by ironic off-screen commentary. Here, it is the naive voice of one of the couple’s children that recounts the family drama. The mother constantly has fantasies of suicide in the film, certainly, but the viewer cannot hate her for it: an achievement of actress Katharina Schubert, as well as the direction.

Film neuroses, the decor of the times, or shooting with children: Vollmar never balks at such challenges. She also refused to accept the pressure to make another scurrilous comedy after My Parents.

Indeed, melancholy dominated in Vacation from Life: a bank employee recognizes that his existence is no more than routine. And because Vollmar likes to get her own way, she made her student graduation project into a full-length film despite the opposition.

Later, she founded her own production company, Royal Pony Film, together with Caroline Daube and made Peaceful Times. She refuses to be categorized, constantly seeking new facets of her film theme.

The next one on the list is a witty, perceptive comedy; the film version of a book that has been very successful in Germany – Maria, ihm schmeckt’s nicht by Jan Weiler. This Claussen+Woebke+Putz production centers on a German-Italian relationship and the resultant misunderstandings: again and again, Vollmar focuses on the minor cultural clashes – between East and West, between bourgeois and dropout, between German and Italian mentality. “I love the cliché,” she says, and adds that she loves to play with it. And often it conceals something that is simply true. But the sense of homelessness in a different culture felt by the main character is important to Vollmar as well. That is what gives the comedy its depth.

Even though her parents sometimes find it annoying to be asked constantly what went wrong when they were bringing up their daughter: Vollmar is not working off any kind of trauma. She has merely found a lively source of inspiration.