3 Days in Quiberon – 3 Days in Quiberon (2018)

Directed by: Emily Atef | 115 minutes | drama | Actors: Marie Bäumer, Birgit Minichmayr, Charly Hübner, Robert Gwisdek, Denis Lavant, Yann Grouhel, Christopher Buchholz, Vicky Krieps, Vincent Furic, Loïc Baylacq, Kalle Schmitz

Romy Schneider. Icon of European cinema in the sixties and seventies. Those who looked beyond her ‘Sissi’ films – and a bit of film buffs soon did, given that she has worked with the biggest names – from Orson Welles to Luchino Visconti – couldn’t help but notice her immense talent and appeal. But behind that facade with a breathtaking smile and shining eyes was a troubled woman. In ‘3 Tage in Quiberon’, film maker Emily Atef, who grew up in France, focuses on a short period in the last period of the actress’s life: that of a stay in a spa in Brittany. And we get to know the person behind the many gossip in the media a little better.

‘3 Days in Quiberon’ has a very strong cast. First of all, Marie Bäumer in the role of Romy. Apart from the sometimes even uncanny resemblance to her colleague, she also manages to impress with her powerful playing. Her Romy is as we imagined her: vulnerable but also hard, like a little girl in an evil world, exuberant but also withdrawn, a loving mother, who says she will do anything for her children, but can show nothing but weakness as it comes down to resisting temptation. The role of her (in this story fictional) childhood friend Hilde is played by Birgit Minichmayr and she provides a good counterbalance to Marie. She is the proverbial voice of reason, supports her friend through and through, but also dares to speak the truth and choose for herself. Then there are the two male roles: Charly Hübner as photographer friend Robert Lebeck, for whom Romy has a soft spot and vice versa, and Robert Gwisdek, as Michael Jürgs, journalist from Der Stern, with whom Romy has promised an interview, pure and only because she likes Robert.

Once the interview starts, the film strikes a fine balance. There is an almost hostile tension between Jürgs and Romy – and the actress cleverly turns the roles of interviewer and interviewee around. The four people are often in each other’s company, or meet again in other places in and around the spa. A spontaneous pub visit leads the first evening to an endearing scene in which Romy talks to the youngest visitors at a wedding party and a bizarre fragment in which a drunken Denis Lavant (‘Holy Motors’) wraps the equally intoxicated actress around his fingers.

Fueled by the genuine photo reportage that the late photographer Lembeck entrusted to Emily Atef before his death (his archive consisted of nearly 600 photos, while only 20 were ever published), black and white was the only option for ‘3 Days in Quiberon’. It creates an authentic atmosphere; you sometimes have to remind yourself that you are not watching ‘behind-the-scenes’ recordings, but that it is a made-up reconstruction. Thanks to the always fascinating, sometimes painfully candid conversations between the star and the journalist, Atef knows exactly how to capture the atmosphere of that time: it is inconceivable that a similar situation could lead to such an article today. Not a biopic, not a tribute to the legendary actress, ‘3 Days of Quiberon’ shows the two extremes of a beloved movie star in a fascinating way and how a ruthless journalist, a photographer in love and a loyal friend deal with it and how it affects them. . Possibly the ultimate Romy-without-Romy movie. Incidentally, Romy’s daughter Sarah Biasini has expressed her displeasure with this film, because the film portrays her mother as an alcoholic.