Director Timm Kröger's THE UNIVERSAL THEORY, nominated six times for the German Film Award, is an enigmatic masterpiece about a mysterious pianist who suddenly disappears and men in black coats and hats who snoop around in uranium mines. His first film, THE COUNCIL OF BIRDS, was a university graduation film without distribution, and THE UNIVERSAL THEORY, starring Jan Bülow, Olivia Ross and Hanns Zischler, is therefore considered a debut film.
It was the only German entry in competition at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, and was of course shown here. The occasion for an extensive and exciting interview with the young filmmaker, which follows below.
Films and series that are either set in the Alps or deal with physics are unusually popular at the moment. Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER, about the father of the atomic bomb, Julius Robert Oppenheimer, explains the intricacies of particle physics and the mathematical and logistical problems involved in building the first atomic bomb. The film was a hit with millions of viewers worldwide and the Oscar jury - it is the most successful biopic of all time. What makes people sit through 180 minutes of detailed mansplaining about the divergence between the particle theories of Albert Einstein ("Everything is relative" is attributed to him) and Werner Heisenberg? Is it the hero's moral dilemma? Or the question of who this brilliant man, who most people didn't even know before, really was? Or is it sensationalism - people want to see the bomb go off? Probably all of the above, plus a nostalgia for a time when everything was more manageable. A time when men wore hats and women took care of the children. A time that also revives THE UNIVERSAL THEORY.
Time travel and multiverses have always been part of cinema. What is new is that they are being embraced by audiences and critics alike. Last year, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's surreal EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE became the most awarded film in film history. DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS from 2022 had a huge audience worldwide. Prominent physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku and Max Tegmark, who all support the multiverse theory, show that the theory of parallel universes is not just a pop culture phenomenon.
Thanks to new supercomputers and AI, the technological possibilities are allowing us to understand and change even more of our existence. This is both unsettling and fascinating.
THE UNIVERSAL THEORY also quotes and satirises German mountain films. Timm Kröger gives us detailed information about his influences and references. He is not alone in his enthusiasm for massive mountains. The series DAVOS 1917, the most expensive German-Swiss major production to date, is also set in the Alps. Dominique Devenport is a nurse in a sanatorium in the town of the same name, which is teeming with spies. Like THE UNIVERSAL THEORY, DAVOS 1917 has a strong retro feel. There is a lot going on beneath the surface, and a certain melancholy pervades the narrative. No wonder, given the horrors of the First World War that the main character in DAVOS 1917 had to witness. No wonder, given the obdurate mood of the German post-war period, which concealed the horrors of the Second World War, and which Timm Kroeger stages so brilliantly in THE UNIVERSAL THEORY. Perhaps, in the face of the news, we long too much for an intact, secluded mountain world.
DAVOS was also shown here last year, as was EIGHT MOUNTAINS by Felix Van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch. This one, however, is purely contemporary. Mountains as an escape from the pressures of urban life.
It was not unlike Louis Trenker's THE MOUNTAIN CALLS and Arnold Frack's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, both starring Leni Riefenstahl. However, unlike EIGHT MOUNTAINS, these films were not about an intense relationship between two friends and fragile life plans, but about adventure and heroism, which fitted in well with the propaganda of the emerging German fascism. Apart from that, the Germans have always been fond of their mountains and those of their neighbours in films. Whether in the Heimatfilme of the 50s or in BERGDOKTOR: it's just beautiful up there.
Less a celebration of the beauty of nature than an exploration of withdrawal and ennui, THE UNIVERSAL THEORY stands in the tradition of Thomas Mann's novel THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, which was congenially adapted by Hans W. Geißendörfer as a three-part film for public television in 1982 (what happened to that fantastic leading man?). A look at the plot and themes of Mann's novel makes it easier to understand why melancholy mountain films are hip.
The novel is about Hans Castorp, a young man who travels to a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps for a few weeks, but ends up staying longer due to unforeseen circumstances. During his time in the sanatorium he is confronted with various philosophical, social and political ideas that reflect the society of his time. The central aspect of the novel is the portrayal of the times and the spirit of the age. The passivity and lethargy of the patients in the sanatorium reflect a society marked by alienation and doubt. This atmosphere of stagnation and reflection could be compared to today's digital age, where many people are trapped in their virtual worlds, leading to a kind of timelessness - real life is no longer as important. The secluded world of the mountains as a retreat for healing, where time stands still. In Timm Kröger's film, it even gets completely out of hand.
"Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch making love on the carpet of an old hotel lobby" is how Timm Kröger describes his film THE UNIVERSAL THEORY in our interview. He particularly likes the musty, strange post-war period. There was a lot of silence, and when there wasn't, there was an exuberant, slightly eerie cheerfulness.
The mountains, which Kröger filmed in Austria and not in Switzerland, are the backdrop for his research and reflections on the last things in the world and a tender love story. What all this has to do with Slavoj Žižek, postmodernism, Hitchcock, Heinz Erhardt, Rick and Morty and Erich Kästner, among others, he reveals in the conversation we had with him on the occasion of the screening of his film at our festival.
THE UNIVERSAL THEORY shies away from big emotional outbursts in the plot. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is symphonic and pathetic throughout. Soundtracks are Timm Kröger's obsession. As a model for his film, he wanted a score that sounded like that of Paul Misraki, who composed the music for Godard's ALPHAVILLE, among others.
When Kröger was asked as a piano student what he wanted to play, he replied "JURASSIC PARK". He is not interested in the distinction between E and U. He simply mixes everything together and then puts it into the particle accelerator of his imagination. The result is surprisingly big, grown-up cinema from an exciting young artist.
