Ingeborg Bachmann - Journey into the Desert

Director Margarethe von Trotta delivers a thoughtful exploration of love in a patriarchal society, which ends up being surprisingly hopeful considering how cruel reality can be.

That love and suspicion can coexist is the most profound unspoken truth in “Ingeborg Bachmann,” and Von Trotta’s biggest strength here is drawing out that paradox in the relationships between men and women, whether they are artists or not.

In the end, there’s perhaps just too much sheen to this heartfelt portrait for it to really bite. But it remains a touching tribute to a woman who, von Trotta suggests, pitted a radical desire to question everything against the comfortable certainties of the men who surrounded her.

The film is so refined and filled with good taste, not to mention poetry citations and dialogue rendered with quotations marks, that it often feels inert.

In many ways, Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert feels like the exact opposite of the project we ought to be attempting, which is to reclaim the work of women of genius who are in danger of falling into obscurity, without reducing their already threatened legacies to mere romantic biography