Interview Tobias Nölle (Aloys)

Tobias Nölle caused a furore with the short film ‘René’ (2008) – he won the Golden Leopard in Locarno, among other things. Besides contributing to ‘Heimatland’ in 2015, he worked for a long time on his first feature film, ‘Aloys’. (“much too long, I dare not say how long” according to the filmmaker). ‘Aloys’ has been doing very well on the film festival circuit since its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016 and can finally be seen in the Netherlands in April 2017, during the Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam. Fortunately, a national release will follow shortly after (April 20, 2017), so that more people can enjoy this wonderfully surreal gem.

Besides the more obvious similarities with ‘Aloys’, such as social isolation, there is also an oriental element in ‘René’ (when Hans spells ‘Hanoi’ with the separate keyboard keys’, MM). “That is more coincidence than intentional. Although I’ve been to China and Japan, I don’t feel particularly interested in Asian culture. The food is nice, but I’m not familiar with the literature and the movies. When I lived in China Town in New York, I was surrounded by Asians, but you hardly come across them in Switzerland. So it always feels exotic. It may have happened unconsciously, but the choice for the Asian girl was based on that.”

Interesting side characters

Speaking of that Asian girl, it’s striking that the side characters in ‘Aloys’ are so interesting that they almost deserve a starring role in their own movie. How did Tobias manage that? “The girl actually wants to be a detective. That is why she is fascinated by Aloys and likes him. But because he’s so unkind, she pretends she doesn’t like him either. Like Aloys, she is lonely. She is the only Asian girl around and she looks up to him. She finds him strange and fascinating at the same time. A friendship could develop.” He continues: “There was originally more to the cat, but I cut that out of the movie. She put up posters for the missing cat and eventually he returns the cat to its owner. But I left that out because I thought, ‘You don’t have to be morally correct, the cat is happy, they belong to whoever they want to belong to.’

Tilde von Overbeck

Much attention is of course paid to the lead actor Georg Friedrich, who plays a fantastic role in ‘Aloys’, but not much is known about the actress who plays Vera, Tilde von Overbeck. What can he say about her? Tobias: “It is indeed her first role, but she is now with a good agency and if a new film comes along, she will definitely do it. She told me that she has even thought about starting acting classes. But I advised her against it. As much as she likes it, it’s very heavy. She definitely has the potential to be a success. She has a tinge of mystery about her, but you can also project yourself onto her. However, I don’t believe she has the character you need to be an actress. It’s a tough world and you have to be able to stand hearing at auditions that you’re not what they’re looking for. That is not for everyone. But we’ll see. She has a lot of ideas and is very creative.”

The story of how Tobias discovered Tilde is also fun in itself. “There were several auditions, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but none of the actresses gave me the right feeling. Just when I had basically given up, someone said to me that there was an interesting face at the art school that I should meet. Because, said the person, she can be very beautiful, but also the opposite. And that doesn’t mean ‘ugly’, but rather that she’s not an obvious beauty,” adds Tobias hastily. Tobias and Tilde meet and Tilde was immediately enthusiastic. “She fascinated me, but I was told that it was a big risk to work with a non-professional actress. Then I showed the tape to Georg and he just freaked out, calling her a jewel that had fallen from the sky. He was almost afraid she would be too good. Every professional actor wants what the amateurs have, they just do it. They’re a great mix, they’re similar in a way, maybe too similar, but Tilde was the only choice for me.”

Loneliness

Similarities between Aloys and Tobias himself are also there, although perhaps not so at first glance. “The basic setup with the father and son is certainly not one,” says Tobias. “It’s the opposite for me. My father is a liberal. The script editor I work with said I always use those father figures in my movies, maybe it’s a form of reverse psychology.” Rather, Tobias seeks inspiration in his work. “Like me, Aloys is a kind of filmmaker. If you make or write a movie, you don’t really live anymore. You live in your head, you are engaged in a thought process. Sometimes the profession of film maker is very lonely, in that sense I identify with Aloys.” Tobias doesn’t like that part of his job. “My favorite part of my job is when I’m on set, with other people. But I can’t change it. As a filmmaker you are constantly observing. There comes a time when you are not sure if you want to observe or if you would rather be part of what is happening. As a director you are very lonely. It all depends on you. You make the decisions, no one takes away the fear, you have to learn to deal with it yourself. Of course you have contact with professionals such as the cinematographer, but at the end of the day it comes down to you. That is twofold. On the one hand you are one big family and it’s all super fun, but in the evening they can party and you have to decide what happens the next day.”

Tobias also knows the feeling of loneliness in his private life. “Of course I am no different from most people in that regard. I put it in my work because I think it’s the most common feeling. I’m not exactly sure why it interests me so much, but sometimes I feel like it’s in every story. Not specifically that people are lonely, but that they want to belong to something. Aloys is of course much more extreme, and I never lived like him. Some people who’ve seen the movie think he’s a freak, but I don’t think so at all. No one contributed to the film, by the way. Everyone loved the character. He’s not like everyone else, but I see that as a quality rather than a flaw. I love when someone is different, I want to befriend them right away. If someone has their own world, that’s attractive to me. And that goes for Vera too. I imagined that if they were together after the movie, they would be the coolest couple in the world. Precisely because they are the opposite of boring, they have their own language, their own poetry.”

epic love

The love story in ‘Aloys’ has almost epic proportions. You can’t imagine that they would ever break up. “Yeah, I hoped it would feel that way too,” laughs Tobias. “They are different, he is a lot older and lives in an old world, she is more of the modern world. But in one small clip, they realize that they are also equal. There are not many other people they would fit in so well with them. They are each other’s puzzle piece.”

Sanding along madness

In the film, Aloys is completely absorbed in his fantasies. Is he aware of that? Tobias says: “Yes, but only at the end. When Vera comes to his door, he will know. But he is unable to open the door, it is too early. But in that sequence, he realizes that if he doesn’t go after her now, it’s a decision that determines whether he goes for her (reality) or madness. He could be quite happy with his fantasy, but then he would be crazy. In that last moment, he takes a leap that not many people would.” Tobias indicates that fantasy is great, that life without fantasy is desolate and meaningless, but also that it is dangerous. “Certainly for creative people, such as artists, fantasy often rubs against madness. It is also in ‘René’, who comes pretty close to that too.” About ‘Aloys’ he notes that there are some people who think that Aloys has ended in his fantasy. “That’s not the case for me. He chose life,” he says firmly.

Happy ending?

The ending of ‘Aloys’ has changed over the course of the filming process. “I had already written a similar ending, but much more optimistic. We had even filmed it already. It ended up in her apartment and it was actually way too much fun. The sun was shining, they touched each other’s hands. On paper it felt very natural. All fantasy and special atmosphere was gone. The whole movie is quite stylized, but the ending was more like you know from other movies. More conventional. I thought, Oh, this is good, because you know they’ve arrived in our world now, but when we filmed it, we already felt it was a lie. It’s not like they are.” Tobias was lucky that Georg Friedrich got a toothache and the insurance made it possible to film an extra day. “That’s how we managed to replace this scene. And that felt much better, much more natural. Of course Vera is far from being cured and there would be countless people who would be happy with the happy ending as we first envisioned it, but I am happier with this.”

Telephone walking

In ‘Aloys’ it is pretended that phone wandering or telephone walking is an existing phenomenon discovered in Japan, but Tobias invented this himself. “I don’t remember exactly how I got it. I was editing for a friend in her New York apartment, and we could hear the neighbors talking through the walls. I started to fantasize about that, that you are actually so close, but also so far away. I’ve also had long-distance relationships in my time in New York, so I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone. I have always been fascinated by voices. As a child I listened to the radio a lot, and I always wondered what those people looked like. Such a sports commentator then becomes a kind of icon, they become part of your life. And whenever you saw their face for the first time, you were disappointed because it was so different from what you had imagined. Every sound creates an image in me. Not everyone has that. I talked about this with my mother and she is very well read, but her brain doesn’t work like that. She feels things, but she doesn’t visualize them. I thought that was so strange to hear.” He continues: “I found it interesting to think that people can control the imagination of others, for example by making certain sounds. In addition, I like the concept of a parallel universe. That the universe in one’s head is bigger than physical reality.”

Father and son

In addition to the unconventional relationship between Aloys and Vera, ‘Aloys’ also highlights the relationship between Aloys and his father. Initially, the relationship between them seems non-existent, as Aloys reacts numbly at the death of his father, but as the film progresses, you notice that they did care about each other. Tobias explains: “Aloys never learned to deal with emotions. I blame that on the missing mother figure. Aloys and his father were close, but they never talk to each other about feelings. As detectives, they have learned to never get personally involved. Not knowing what to do, Aloys turns on the camera, basically for protection. He treats his dead father as he treats the individuals he observes at work. He suppresses the loneliness and the emotions and then he realizes that it is actually a prison in which he lived. On the balcony, with Vera’s fantasy, it’s like that’s the same prison, and that’s when he realizes that’s madness. It’s too safe, over the phone. He has to do it in real life, deal with real feelings. You can’t simply put the phone down and say enough.”

Text and photo Tobias Nölle: Monica Meijer