Film “All You Are”: “Love is falling apart just like industry”

You spent the first seven years of your life in Cologne, then four years in Madrid, then you moved back to Cologne. When you were young, you often had to adapt to new situations and perhaps even reinvent yourself. “All That You Are” is a story about many characters in one person. Is the film also biographically inspired?

I had a wonderful childhood, but losing my best friends due to the moves and having to learn a new language left an impact on me. Sometimes I wasn’t really part of reality, just observing a lot. Almost all of my characters share the feeling of never being quite in the right place or right there.

Paul has different personalities within him. This is expressed in the film by the fact that he is portrayed by different actors. However, only his wife Nadine recognizes his different alter egos.

I think we all carry many more roles than we sometimes want to admit. For Nadine, Paul can be anything: a vulnerable child, a teenager or a completely different person. She embraces all of these personalities lovingly. The others always only see one person, some just a crazy person. At the Berlinale, I found that some viewers were able to understand Paul better as a child, while others were able to understand the real Paul, so to speak. Ultimately, Paul’s roles say much more about Nadine: they show what she wants to see in him, what longings and needs she has. By the way, Nadine also has dozens of roles in this film, all of which are played by Aenne Schwarz.

What was important to you when you developed Paul’s different characters?

You should definitely be able to tell them apart from each other. I also really wanted there to be a child (Sammy Schrein) because that’s a role I think we can all relate to. Then there is Paul’s role as a woman who, to me, is like the grandma I never had. Jule Nebel-Linnenbaum, who embodies this character, radiates a lot of warmth when she plays. When she says something, it has a completely different effect than if another character were to say the same thing. The “main Paul” is played by Carlo Ljubek. In the film he fights for Nadine’s love for him. Something of what he embodies also exists in the others, however different they are in terms of language, age or temperament.

How did you implement this change of form on film?

That was very challenging. The changes should have a seamless transition in order to appear natural. When Paul’s form changes, Aenne Schwarz simply continued playing the scene, even though we only shot the “other Paul” an hour later. From a technical point of view, it wasn’t easy either because there is a lot of contact in the film, so the characters aren’t just “talking heads.” Otherwise this could have been shown in dialogue scenes with counter shots. But sometimes we swapped the respective figure in the background or solved the problem through editing.

The action is set in the coal mining industry, which gives the film something realistic and grounded; the unreal change of shape forms a contrast. Is that why you chose this harsh environment?

I was primarily interested in a universal story about love. Then I asked myself: Where do I want to locate them? The region also seemed appropriate to me because – just like in the love story – there is a lot of uncertainty there. Love is falling apart, just like industry. But for me it is not a contradiction to work with magical elements in this harsh environment. Imagination, playfulness and humor are everywhere.

Are we too intellectual when we talk about the working class?

Yes. I wanted to go into a milieu that is rarely talked about with imagination. In films, people are often simply reduced to their work. You either have pity or romanticize everything. In contrast, Nadine is a self-determined narrator of the story. Of course she and Paul have to struggle a lot with the external circumstances, but I also want to show what questions they are still grappling with: Who and how do you love? I also always look for supposed opposites. When things get sad in the film, I immediately want to bring in something absurd and vice versa. This is how I move forward, so to speak.

In the film, all the characters clearly express what they feel. That seems a bit strange.

There is this credo in the film that characters are not allowed to say what they feel and think. But I think if characters have a lot to say, they should. In my opinion, the exciting thing in “All That You Are” is that the characters say as much as possible, but still cannot solve their problems.

“All You Are”, Germany/Spain 2024. Director and screenplay: Michael Fetter Nathansky. With: Aenne Schwarz, Carlo Ljubek, Youness Aabbaz, Sammy Schrein, Jule Nebel-Linnenbaum, Naila Schuberth and others 108 min. Now in the cinema.