The Dreamed Ones: Filming the Celan-Bachmann Letters

Anja Plaschg, Laurence Rupp
© Ruth Beckermann 
Filmproduktion


Last week I went to see The Dreamed Ones (2016, directed by Ruth Beckermann) at Institut Français in South Kensington. I walked for over half an hour in a sleetstorm to get there - it's only been showing for a few nights here and there in the UK, so I was determined to see it.

The Ingeborg Bachmann-Paul Celan letters were first published in German in 2008, and a few years later in English translation. Prior to the publication of the letters, not much was known about the relationship between two of the greatest German-language poets of the 20th century (Bachmann was Austrian and Celan was a Romanian/Bukovinian German-speaking Jew. He is the very definition of 'hard to label'.) Celan and Bachmann met in Vienna in 1948 when he was 27 and she was 21. He wrote the poem 'In Egypt' for her 22nd birthday. They had an on-off affair/friendship, and correspondence, for 20 years, during most of which time they didn't see each other or only occasionally. Celan was married to artist Gisèle Lestrange when the affair resumed in the 1950s.

The Dreamed Ones (in German, with English subtitles) dramatises the letters by placing the audience in a studio with the young Austrian actors Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp, as they make a sound recording of the correspondence. That's all that happens. We see them recording some of the letters and bits of poetry; in between takes, they smoke, chat, flirt, and discuss the events and emotions behind the letters (for instance, why Bachmann chose not to send certain letters.) 

That's all that happens, but the film was beautiful. The letters themselves are almost indescribable; passionate, tender, thoughtful, wistful, paranoid, hurt... 

In mid-August I will be in Paris for just a few days. Don't ask me why or what for, but be there for me, for one evening, or two or three... Take me to the Seine, let us gaze into it until we become little fishes and recognise each other again. (Ingeborg Bachmann to Paul Celan)

How far away or close are you, Ingeborg? Tell me, so that I know whether your eyes will be closed if I kiss you now. (Paul Celan to Ingeborg Bachmann)

It does seem as though the passion and the darkness of the letters could be spilling over into the interactions between the actors, although this isn't explored too far. The playfulness and the silences between them illustrate something about how flesh-and-blood people interact or even fall in love, beyond the words. But this film is really about the words. There is something about the studio, and the faces (especially the eyes) of the actors, which create a space in which these letters can really breathe and live. I don't know how better to put it than that. The letters, beyond the pain and misunderstandings and imperfection, and the paranoia that Celan especially fell into, seem to achieve a spiritual-sensual level that I can't imagine many correspondences reaching, especially today. I just know that nothing really happened in this film but I didn't want it to end.