Carpenter’s daughter Lotte is fascinated by the Bauhaus movement. ARD is showing the film, which was shot on the occasion of the 100th birthday of the Bauhaus, again.
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In Weimar in 1921, the artistically highly talented carpenter’s daughter Lotte Brendel (Alicia von Rittberg) was fascinated by the local Bauhaus art college. Under director Walter Gropius (“Tatort” commissioner Jörg Hartmann), conditions are almost revolutionary there. At the state institute founded in 1919, 50 percent of the students are women. You work on a clear, functional design. And there is a spirit of freedom, courage and adventure. Lotte has to break with her strict father and the family in order to be able to participate in the “Bauhauslers”.
As a student, she met and fell in love with her fellow student Paul Seligmann (Noah Saavedra). The melodrama “Lotte am Bauhaus” puts a love and relationship story at the center of its Bauhaus chronology from the school’s creation in 1919 to its closure by the Nazis in 1933. Because that evening the German national soccer team played their third World Cup qualifying game North Macedonia denies (can be seen on RTL), the first of this “FilmWittwoch” has decided to broadcast a repeat. “Lotte at the Bauhaus” celebrated its premiere on February 13, 2019 as part of a themed evening to mark the 100th birthday of the famous movement.
The invention of Bauhaus, a comprehensive way of thinking and looking at art, of which architecture and furniture design in particular are left today, is one of the cultural achievements of the Germans. All over the world – and especially in the USA – the term still makes many people’s eyes light up. In retrospect you can understand why. Bauhaus stood not only for the open way of life of its students, but also for revolutionary design ideas: Houses, furniture and other everyday objects should be characterized by simple beauty and functionality, less by ornament and senseless opulence. Bauhaus wanted to invent “devices” that serve people – and do not dominate or “kill” them in the figurative sense.
Did Lotte really exist?
That Lotte, whose life path is perhaps a trace too melodramatic in the film, did not actually exist. However, screenwriter Jan Braren (Grimmepreis 2012 for “Homevideo) orients himself with his character on true Bauhaus heroines like Friedl Dicker or Alma Siedhoff-Buscher. Buscher’s children’s room from 1923, which the talented carpenter and furniture designer came up with, is still considered a great success today parents with high aesthetic demands are happy to integrate them into their little ones’ living space.
The 105-minute long television film directed by Gregor Schnitzler (“The Cloud”) initially takes a lot of time to show the romance and the arrival of the amazed young Lotte in the Weimar study program. In half two, when Lotte’s idealized relationship with Paul – the two now have a child – threatens to break due to the realities and machismo of everyday life, the film then seems almost a bit rushed in its portrayal of political and social changes.
In September of the Bauhaus anniversary year 2019, the miniseries “Die neue Zeit” produced by the series with Anna Maria Mühe as historical Bauhaus artist Dörte Helm and August Diehl as Walter Gropius took more time. The controversial liaison between Gropius and his student (Mühe) was at the center of the competing product under public law. Even at the cool, bold Bauhaus it doesn’t work without love.
Lotte am Bauhaus – Mi. 31.03. – ARD: 8:15 p.m.
Source: teleschau – der mediendienst GmbH –
