Is it correct? A little deeper? Or is it higher? Martha Liebermann is standing in the salon of the stately villa at Wannsee and considering the height at which she wants to see herself, painted by Anders Zorn in 1896. She can’t really make up her mind, asks Luise, one of the many domestic workers, for advice. The very bold Berliner knows immediately how it has to be right. And then the light goes out in the happy, cheerful scene, war and death can be heard from the radio, ghostly troops can be seen marching through the window, Gestapo men are ravaging the villa.
Stefan Buehling has Martha Liebermann – A stolen life filmed, adapted the biographical novel “So close to paradise. Martha Liebermann” by Sophia Mott and placed Thekla Carola Wied at the center of his film. Wied is great. You don’t think for a second the funny TV series, with which she became acquainted, she plays here a monument of love, of sorrow, of grief. And she plays poise and dignity, without much effort, but with the greatest conviction. In the summer she received the actor’s prize at the Festival international de Télévision de Monte-Carlo.
Martha (Wied) with her husband, the painter Max Liebermann (Rüdiger Vogler).
(Photo: Jan Prahl/ARD Degeto)
Bühling briefly shows how wonderful life used to be. Martha and her husband Max in the garden of the villa, he gives her, “the kindest person”, a ring, a family heirloom, because “there is a piece of Martha in every one of my pictures”. Max Liebermann, the world-famous painter of ordinary people – once you will see his “goose pluckers” in the background – the Impressionist, who painted Reich President Hindenburg and was honored by him, allegedly said: “I can’t do that much eat how I want to puke.” With that he commented on the seizure of power by the Nazis in 1933, he withdrew from public life and died in 1935. Martha stayed behind, with the pictures, with the memories and with Luise, played wonderfully and touchingly by Lana Cooper.
Bühling stages both a highly concentrated chamber play and a detailed thriller full of historical truth. Berlin, 1943. Martha now lives in an apartment full of pictures. Luise is with her, as an “Aryan” she shouldn’t work for her, the Jewess, but she can’t and doesn’t want to leave her alone. The Nazis blocked Liebermann’s accounts, and the pictures are on an inventory list. It still seems possible to leave the country, Sweden or Switzerland, further to the USA, where the daughter has been living for five years. A resistance group around Johanna Solf (Fritzi Haberlandt) wants to help, but there is a lack of money. And Teubner, the Gestapo man (Franz Hartwig), is always lurking, an icy sleuth who wants to get at the resisters via Liebermann, launching false hopes and stirring up betrayal.
Finally, Martha acts herself. Sews the Star of David onto her coat, leaves the apartment after a long time. Wants to put things in order – and decides differently. Martha Liebermann takes Veronal because she can’t tear herself away from the memories of the love of her life because she doesn’t want to endanger anyone. Luise is with her in the hospital. Until death.
Martha Liebermann – A stolen life, the first, Monday, 8:15 p.m., and already in the ARD media library.