Sebastian Schipper

"I think the challenge for films is that you want to fly and still touch the ground at the same time," 41-year-old director, scriptwriter and actor Sebastian Schipper says of the motivation behind his work. "You want a miracle but you want to believe in it."

Although his work as a director has yet to reach a substantial world-wide audience, it’s fair to say that over the last ten years Schipper’s trademark mixture of understated surrealism, offbeat humor and a perceptive insight into human psychology have carved him a significant niche in his German homeland. Despite starting out as an actor – including a role in Anthony Minghella’s multiple Oscar®-winning "The English Patient" – it’s as the screenwriter and director behind three defiantly German films that he has earned a reputation as one of the country’s most promising cinematic talents.

"Gigantic" came first, a witty and touching story about three friends enjoying their last night together in Hamburg before one of them moves to Cape Town. Initially the movie sank with little trace, but its DVD release provided a second opportunity for it to reach its audience. "For the first half a year after the film came out," Schipper reminisces, "it was a disaster. Nobody really knew the actors, it was obviously a small budget film, and Germans just didn’t trust it. Then it got nominated for a German Film Award, and then it won a German Film Award in silver, and about a year after it got distributed I realized a lot of people got a kick when I said, 'Yeah, I directed that film'. They’d say, ‘Really? I saw that film eleven times!’

I never saw any film eleven times!" The film’s strengths lie in the relationship between its three central characters and Schipper’s exploration of what unites and separates them as much as it does in its memorable set pieces. Amidst the unlikely tension of a table football game, a clash with drag-racing Elvis impersonators and hours spent drinking in empty bars or kicking heels in parking garages emerges a lingering portrait of urban German life and camaraderie that reaches far beyond its geographical roots.

Schipper is sanguine about its initial lack of success, however. "It was not an obvious comedy: three guys, one last night, a German film, especially in those days. German hit films are comedies or they’re people marching. Whether they’re marching for Hitler or East Germany, there’s not a big difference. The Germans must march or they’ve got to be funny. But 'Gigantic' was what the French call a comedie humaine. You don’t laugh your arse off."

Its subsequent growing cult status, however, paved the way for his second film, "A Friend of Mine". Once again, Schipper immerses himself in the minutiae of human relationships, singling out a short period in his protagonists’ lives and zooming in on little details that have significant repercussions. Karl, played by Daniel Brühl, is an unfulfilled twentysomething who steps out of the comfort zone of his job in car insurance to spy on a rental company. There he meets Hans (Jürgen Vogel), a worker whose easygoing approach to life simultaneously infuriates and liberates Karl, and once again an unusual friendship provides the foundation for a series of bizarre incidents that help to shake Karl out of his torpor. Schipper’s growing confidence as a director and scriptwriter makes for a series of quietly provocative scenes, not least a beautifully filmed car race along a rainy autobahn, but instead of upping the pace once more for his latest film he chose to move in the opposite direction.

"Sometime in August" was inspired by a Goethe short story, "Elective Affinities" ("Wahlverwandtschaften"), and is a refreshingly intimate tale of a couple’s intentions to enjoy weeks alone renovating a summer house outside Berlin. Their peace is disturbed by the arrival of two more guests who inadvertently reveal the fractures within Hanna (Marie Bäumer) and Thomas (Milan Peschel)’s relationship. Its gentle pace has led some to dismiss it as whimsical but repeated viewings reveal its depth and a profound understanding of human nature at that point in people’s lives where they need to take responsibility for their actions and work out where they really belong.

"It’s amazing the attention the old master pays to the very beginnings, the very seeds, the things invisible to the naked eye. I think this is how things change between people, constantly, "Schipper explains of his attraction to a writer who he admits he was at first far from keen to read. "My films so far are about an inner monologue," he continues, elaborating on the connections between this and his former work. "My 'Bermuda Triangle', the place where I’ve been paddling around for ten years of filmmaking, is marked by 'Catcher in the Rye', Truffaut’s '400 Blows' and 'Hamlet'. Those are my biggest 'buoys'. And of course 'Hamlet' is so absolutely amazing because it is about that inner monologue: a guy being portrayed as interesting who doesn’t know what to do."

One of the more unusual things about Schipper’s films is that they rarely offer closure in the traditional cinematic fashion. He allows his audience only to imagine a life before the cameras started rolling, and a future thereafter without a defined ending, happy or otherwise. Within each film, however, we experience the intricately plotted and subtle growth of his central characters. Another hallmark of his three features has been their use of music, often at the expense of all other incidental sound during a scene. "A Friend of Mine" was notable for being one of the first films cleared to use a song by the legendary 1980’s band Talk Talk, and "Sometime in August" features a specially commissioned soundtrack by cult US singer songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

"Music and images, they just dance," the music fan grins. "They tango, they’re like two sex addicts who can’t keep their fingers off one another! My deepest connection with films is that I really like to read and I really like listening to music. When you read you’re a director, you picture what you’re reading and you start to cast people. A lot of books that I’ve read have taken place in my grandmother’s house. Music is the same: you really listen and you go somewhere. I think the most important thing about filmmaking and directing is that you have this daydream thing."

A huge fan of Jim Jarmusch’s black and white films – "he tells a story in such a laconic way," the director effuses – Schipper was first singled out by Tom Tykwer, the director and composer behind "Run Lola Run" in which Schipper also appeared. "I got to know him as an actor when we did 'Wintersleepers'," Schipper recalls. "Already I knew I did not really want to be an actor. I’ve known Tom now fourteen years and he produced two of my three films, and he was the biggest help in getting my third film financed. He’s really like a big brother of mine."

Tykwer is also producing Schipper’s next film, a thriller set in Germany that looks set to be as huge a stylistic leap from "Sometime in August" as that was in turn from "A Friend of Mine". "Odysseus", Schipper confides, is "a journey into darkness, into violence, into fear, for a very average German who works as an editor in a publishing house. It’s set perfectly in Germany because we’re so secure, so cushioned in a way." He’s clearly excited by the prospect. "When Tom was asked at the last Berlinale what he was up to next, his answer was that he would do 'Cloud Atlas' with the Wachowski Brothers and then he’ll produce my new film. That felt awesome!"

Furthermore, Tykwer is responsible for putting Schipper back in front of the camera, giving him a starring role in "Drei", which shoots this autumn. Although he prefers to write and direct, the Berlin resident couldn’t resist the offer. "I’m not a very good actor," he laughs, "though I would have loved to be a great actor. But it’s a part that’s really close to me: I’m just a guy that has relationship things going on. I think that might be one of my strongest assets for directing, however. The actors realize how much I admire them."

With Schipper’s career shaping up to be a slow burner much like his movies, international success can’t be too far behind. His films have already travelled abroad with successful screenings in the US and a potential UK-based DVD release for "A Friend of Mine" on the horizon. Asked if he has an international audience in mind for his work, he smiles. "I’ve thought about making a movie in English. Actually I have a couple of projects in mind. When I travel to foreign screenings I think that people understand my humor, which means a lot to me. But for now I am trying to tell German stories that people can relate to. I think that, if I may be allowed to pat myself on the shoulder here, I have a feeling that I speak the language that people understand universally in some way, of humor, of romance. 'Sometime in August' recently won the first prize at the French Romantic Film Festival (Festival de Carbourg). A French film festivalthat only shows love movies, films about love, and the German wins the prize!"

It is almost, as Schipper himself would most likely humbly admit, a miracle of sorts, but it’s one based as firmly in reality as it is in his original daydreams...

Author: Wyndham Wallace