To this day, women are in many art genres in the shadow of men, especially in painting. But a look at art history shows that they have always existed, those women who broke through the barrier and were no longer only muse. The British-Mexican painter Leonora Carrington is one of these formative women in art history, whose works are also achieving top prices. Even if the deserved appreciation of the entire art world really only gave her after her death in 2011 – now you know about her artistic merits and achievements.
Since then, they have even called many in the one breath with the large Frida Kahlo, about which there are already some films. Including a very remarkable (and wonderfully animated) document called “Hola Frida” published last year – as well as the biopic “Frida” from 2002, which Salma Hayek shows as Kahlo in one of her strongest roles. British Olivia Vinall grants in “Leonora in the morning light“Now a comparable nuanced, electrifying performance, which will probably remain in your memory for just as long.
The relationship between Leonora Carrington (Olivia Vinall) Max Ernst (Alexander Scheer) is anything but uncomplicated …
Paris in the 1930s: The British Leonora Carrington (Olivia Vinall), born, regularly breaks as a rebel with the social conventions of her time. However, her life takes a decisive turn when she met the German painter Max Ernst (Alexander Scheer) in the French capital in 1937. Carrington fell in love with the artist 26 years older and contracts with him. A little later, Ernst makes her known with the surrealistic movement. Carrington meets greats like Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso – and finds inspiration in their relationship with Ernst Inspiration for their own art. After the arrest of Ernst through the Nazis, Carrington goes to Spain, where it suffers a collapse and then instructed it into a nerve clinic.
Carrington goes through hell for many months: not only electric shocks are the order of the day. Despite these traumatic experiences, Carrington later succeeds in starting Mexico – and developing into a celebrated artist of surrealism. “Leonora in the morning” begins in 1951 when the years with seriousness and in psychiatry are long behind Carrington. Director Thor Klein deliberately dispenses with a linear narrative and simple chronological processing of her life stages. Instead, he incorporates flashbacks into the childhood of the exceptional artist – and so dramaturgically wise the time levels.
Fantastries, masked horses, dark mysticism
Even as a child, the surrealist had a penchant for fantasy, not least thanks to her nanny, who told the young Leonora fairy tale of ghost and mysterious creatures. The girl was convinced that they could speak to animals. In general, she has always had a special relationship with horses and hyenas. Klein, for example, provides references in the naming of the individual chapters of his biographical drama that bear names like “The Horse” and “The Hyene”.
Klein (“Adventure of a Mathematician”) also relies on atmospheric subtlete and mysterious aura from the start, which gets the film wonderfully – and is pretty good at the visual language of the work of his portrayed artist! After all, Carrington's works are also crossed by dark mysticism, fantastic animal and mythical creatures as well as surreal-altitured elements and motifs. This fantastic, hypnotic effect unfolds in “Leonora in morning light”, especially in the soundtrack. This will be clear in the first few minutes: Klein feels the entire “keyboard” of possible soundscapes, genres and musically generated moods.
Atmospheric soundscape when drifted into the delusion
The waving, partly shimmering electric sounds tell of recessing disaster. Natural sounds and animal sounds, from horse hooves to the striking calls of a hyena, are always joining. And while the worn string and piano passages undercare the phases and experiences in Carrington's life, which are characterized by happiness in life, Percussive Sounds exude discomfort and an aura of fear. This fits particularly well with the disturbing images that visualize Carrington's gradual sliding into psychosis – panic attacks, paranoia and delusions.
The score fits very well to underline the disturbing scenes in the institution. Scenes in which Klein truly creates an atmosphere charged between panic and helplessness! In these moments, the film even reminds of hearty psycho-horror films-only that the (torture) scenes shown here have actually occurred. After all, the film is based on the factual novel “Mrs. des Windes” by Elena Poniatowska.
The relationship between Leonora and her other companions unfortunately remains a bit underdeveloped in the film.
Meanwhile, little vague and timid remains in the design of Carrington's relationships with their closest relatives and companions, in the professional and private environment. This includes their parents, as well as some of those artists who get to know Carrington in Paris. None of the minor characters are really close, for that the focus is far too much on the portrayed, their mental sensitivities and their inner tornness.
In addition, the film is devoted to this toxic relationship in detail, which Carrington shaped like no other in her life: the longstanding romantic and professional relationship with Max Ernst. For many centuries, women in art did not stand in front of the screen, but had to serve as models and pure objects behind it. They were not taken seriously, society (and especially men here) often refrained from their artistic skills. So it happened for many years until it, which shows the film in detail, slowly, to its own style – and finally to itself. Not least thanks to Ernst. “I don't know who I am, but I always paint what I feel,” she says in a central point of the film.
The struggle for your own freedom
Carrington's relationship with Ernst was characterized by mutual respect and enormous connection. But also from attempts by Carrington to emancipate themselves, to fight for their own freedom and to emancipate themselves from the radiance of the important painter and sculptor. “Leonora in morning light” captivates this fabricity in the sensations of Carrington and the complicated relationship of the two self -confident, as stubborn and rebellious characters. What is thanks to the brilliant spectacle by Alexander Scheer (“Cologne 75”) and leading actress Olivia Vinall.
Vinall acts with dignified reluctance and embodies her complex figure fascinating and fine-sensitive and with unshakable dedication. However, she sometimes struggles against a somewhat fragile, unfinished script that spares some central topics and life stations. The influence of the surrealists on the art scene and especially on Carrington is hardly illuminated, nor is their role in the women's exemption movement Mexico. The film therefore does not recognize her life performance as a feminist thoughtwoman and artistic freedom fighter. With a term of 106 minutes, which is truly not long (just think of “Respect” about Aretha Franklin with 145 minutes or “Elvis” with almost 160 minutes) would probably have been there.
Conclusion: Despite social restrictions and prejudices, the surrealist Leonora Carrington was able to prevail in a art world determined by men. The biopic “Leonora in morning light” dominated by an associative narrative style sets a cinematic monument to this extraordinary artist. Despite some of some of the ongoing action lines and a few omissions, it has become a powerful, powerful film. This is mainly due to the carefree, sovereign appearance of the leading actress Olivia Vinall.