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Germany, Austria, Italy · 2016
1h 53m
Director Cordula Kablitz-Post
Starring Katharina Lorenz, Julius Feldmeier, Nicole Heesters, Merab Ninidze
Genre Drama, History
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Lou Andreas-Salomé, the woman who enraptured 19th century Europe’s greatest minds, recounts her life to Ernst Pfeiffer. A published novelist, poet and essayist, Salomé’s desire to live a life free from convention scandalized society but spurred genius and passion in others, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Rée and her lover, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Under the tutelage of Sigmund Freud, she became the first female psychoanalyst.
Salomé would be better served by a story that focuses more explicitly on her intellectual life rather than on her personal one, but considering how stodgy biopics can be, Lou Andreas-Salomé, The Audacity to Be Free offers a mostly engaging portrait of a charismatic and brilliant figure.
Los Angeles Times by Gary Goldstein
Director Cordula Kablitz-Post, who scripted with Susanne Hertel, effectively presents Lou as neither heroine nor genius but as a flawed, complex, fascinating pacesetter.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
Beyond what the film says and represents, it’s also well made.
While trying to save her from being considered as merely an inspiration to the great men around her, the script inadvertently reinforces this impression.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Though Cordula Kablitz-Post's feature debut Lou Andreas-Salome, The Audacity to be Free views this very unconventional woman through the conventions of the biopic, its drama benefits from a viewer's ignorance of her story.
The New York Times by Teo Bugbee
Throughout, the writer and director Cordula Kablitz-Post asserts Andreas-Salomé’s commitment to her own independence. But Ms. Kablitz-Post’s focus on Andreas-Salomé’s suitors has the effect of chaining the early feminist’s legacy to exactly the patriarchal conventions she claims to reject.
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