At the beginning of this thoughtful film, five-year-old Janna answers her mother’s questions in front of her mother’s camera. Who she is: a fairy. Where she comes from: from Walchensee. And what she’s afraid of: the dark. In a sense, Janna Ji Wonders is a documentary Walchensee Forever a remedy for the darkness that has spread through family history. A shadow that lies above all over the biographies of the women about whom this touching story is about.
It all began in 1924 when Wonder’s great-grandmother Apa moved to Walchensee to leave a painful loss behind. She opens a café and thus fulfills a lifelong dream. She is described in the film as the queen of her kingdom, standing in the kitchen in a pretty traditional dress. Grandmother Norma, who dutifully took over the family business, was completely different. She has her first daughter Anna, a young Frisian, shortly before he has to go to war. From there he returns broken inside. But Norma has to take care of the family business as well as Anna and her little sister Frauke. While Norma and the Frisian drift away from each other in everyday life, Anna and Frauke become allies, recalls the director’s mother.
When the parents separate, Frauke goes to boarding school and Anna goes to Munich to study photography. Your photos from the past decades form an important basis for this great film, which in its illustration represents a small miracle. Janna Ji Wonders has been able to find image and sound material for every generation that she skillfully arranges. This sovereignty in image handling can already be seen in her documentaries about the gangster rap scene in Los Angeles (Bling Bling) and young Moscow punks (Children of the sleeping quarters) recognize.
Wonders swaps roles at the beginning of the film and questions her mother in front of the camera. With letters, diary entries and other documents, she stimulates her memories because something is inextricably linked in her story. Wonders asks curiously, openly and benevolently, but also insistently, because she wants to know the sadness that has settled over the family over and over again, despite all the positive energy.
She reconstructs the story of her mother Anna, who has almost novel-like features. Anna and Frauke conquered the USA and Mexico in the sixties with dulcimer and guitar. At the legendary Summer of Love they immerse themselves completely in the hippie culture. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported on the singing sisters on a world tour. When Anna hears her sister’s voice decades later, she starts to cry. Because the story has a painful turn. Shortly after the trip, the sisters get to know Rainer Langhans, who has just separated from Uschi Obermeier. With him they continue their self-search. But Frauke loses herself, collapses, and goes to psychiatry. When Anna later lived in an Indian ashram, Frauke died in a mysterious car accident. This loss is inscribed in Anna and Norma in different ways in the soul. While one hardens, the other deepens the self-search. Anna Werner becomes part of Rainer Langhans’ alternative partnership.
In her film, Janna Ji Wonders wants to understand what exactly has drawn the distinctive faces of their mothers and grandmothers in order to recognize what shapes them themselves. The women of this family keep coming back to the Walchensee. This award-winning film was also made in this magical place, which takes off even when the protagonists are overwhelmed by speechlessness.
Walchensee Forever Janna Ji Wonders Germany 2020, 110 minutes
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