Winter Sleepers
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Winterschläfer (English: Wintersleepers) is a German film, directed by Tom Tykwer; it was released in 1997, premiered at the Locarno festival.
Synopsis
The film is set in the deeply snowy alpine winter resort of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria; the story begins shortly after Christmas Day, with five people returning, not all of whom are connected.
Laura, a nurse, and Rebecca, a translator, live together in the house that Rebecca inherited from her great aunt. René is a projectionist in a cinema. Marco, Rebecca's boyfriend, is a skiing instructor who drives an expensive Alfa Romeo. Theo is a farmer who lives with his wife and daughter on a poor farm nearby.
When Marco arrives, he is greeted passionately by Rebecca, and tugged into the house. He leaves his car open outside, with the key still in the ignition. It is the early morning, and René, walking drunkenly home, passes the house, taking pictures, among other things, of Rebecca and Marco having sex inside. Finally, he climbs into the car and drives away. Theo, meanwhile, is taking his horse to the vet, but doesn't let his daughter come with him. He doesn't notice when she gets into the horse box with the animal. Driving on icy roads, Theo almost collides with René, who is drunkenly driving on the wrong side. The Alfa Romeo crashes off the road and into a snowdrift and Rene is not hurt; however, the horse box is flipped over and the girl and horse badly injured. Theo is dazed, but René, rather than helping, takes a photo of him and walks off. When Theo is helped out of his truck by a passing driver, he shoots the horse on the spot and takes his daughter to hospital.
There, Laura hears Theo becoming obsessed with finding the man who caused the accident, to prove his own innocence: no-one believes that there was another car, because it is buried under snow. All he remembers was the shape of René's face close to him, when he took the photo. The young girl is operated-on and is in a coma, between life and death.
Meanwhile, Marco reports the car theft to the police. Rebecca is becoming discontent with her relationship with him; she sees him as taking her for granted, jealous, and lacking ambition. Outside of their sex life, they fight constantly. Laura gets to know René after a play in which she was performing; he gives her a free pass for the cinema where he works, and eventually he shows her his photos, which he keeps in an album with numbers and dates. The reason he takes them is his short-term memory problems; without photos he would have no way of remembering places or people.
Theo and his wife have to shut the farm down because of debts. He draws a picture of the shape he remembers, photocopies it and sticks them up around town, appealing for anyone to come forward if they recognise the scar on the back of the head (like that of René). But Theo's wife takes down all his posters, believing he is only trying to escape his own guilt.
Marco has started an affair with Nina, a student from the skiing class he teaches. He invites her to his boss's house one evening, pretending it is his. Later, he has to go to Laura's hospital after burning himself on the coffee machine, and while he is there, Theo's daughter dies.
Theo, investigating the site of the car crash again, finds the buried car and comes across documents showing Marco to be the owner. Theo goes to Marco's workplace (the ski area) and is told Marco is skiing in the mountains, with Nina. They become separated in fog, and Nina injures herself by falling off a ledge and onto a tree. Desperately trying to find Nina, Marco meets Theo on the mountainside; Theo sets his dog onto Marco, who has no idea why he is being attacked, and manages to ski hurriedly away before going over the edge of a cliff, and he falls, seemingly forever, into a crevasse in the valley, to his death.
In another coincidence, Rebecca and the injured Nina depart on the same train, but don't know each other. The film ends with the birth of René and Laura's child.
Background
- After Die tödliche Maria (1993), Winterschläfer was Tykwer's second full-length feature.
- The film is based on the novel Expense of Spirit by Anne-Françoise Pyszora, however, this original story does not contain the character of Theo, and takes place in summer: Tykwer felt the film would be more attractive in a snowy winter setting. The story of the two couples is faithful to the novel.
- The soundtrack album was released on 3 November 1997 on Ariola Records/BMG. It contains the songs "Untitled #1" by Spain, and Fratres by Arvo Pärt, but the album has become extremely rare since its release (although, being a soundtrack, its music can be heard in the film, or on other albums). [1] [2]
- The title of the film, in German, means something more like "Hibernators" (since Winterschlaf means hibernation), however, it is always called Wintersleepers or Winter Sleepers in English.
- In French, it is sometimes called Les Rêveurs (The Dreamers).
Trivia
- Laura performs in a production of A Streetcar Named Desire
