Amour Fou

Director's Statement

While writing the script I took as my inspiration the historical characters of Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel, but without intending to produce a biographical account; I am much more interested in telling a story about the ambivalence of love, a story with more general validity. The historical setting permits me to tell the story from a distance, and despite the serious subject (double suicide) this also allows a certain laconic humour to be employed. As well as this, the historical context lends the film an interesting multi-faceted quality; one expression of this comes in the dialogues about the administrative reforms in Germany during the years 1810 and 1811. On the one hand these reforms reflect the powerful social and political upheaval taking place at the time, so they help solidify the epoch which is depicted in the film. At the same time the reforms are associated with a certain confusion or contradiction, and I am interested in portraying this: there were apparently very different opinions on these proposed reforms, each plausible in its own way, ranging from fervent support to vehement opposition. This is typical for a period of uncertainty, when it is difficult to know where to take a stand - and this theme runs through the whole film, which aims to present contradictory truths that exist at the same time, precluding an unambiguous response that dispels all doubts. The subjectivity of each standpoint is revealed, and this makes it impossible – in a time of paradigm shift – to understand exactly what is right or wrong.