My Heart Is Mine Alone

Running time: 99 mins

Tolstoy once wrote that all unhappy families are different in their own way. He could also have said this about love affairs. Each one is unique. This is the story of a long love affair between two poets, she German-Jewish, he a Protestant from a bourgeois family. Their lives repeatedly intersect from the early years of the 20th century until the Second World War. It was difficult to be an artist of any kind in the claustrophobic Germany of those years, but particularly for a poet leading a very Bohemian life style with various lovers and spouses. The link between Else Lasker-Schler and Gottfried Benn was their haunting love poetry which they wrote to and for each other throughout their lives. The intrusions of war and politics, particularly the Nazi period, made their lives miserable and unhappy. Nevertheless, their relationship persisted until their separate deaths and, in the process, produced some exquisite poetry. The film's style uses a surprisingly rich mixture of documentary footage and spoken poetry which like poetry itself, transcends ordinary storytelling and is more than the sum of its parts. It's also wonderful to see former Cinequest tributee Lena Stolze once again on screen as she brings life to Else. Stolze, most know for her roles in The Nasty Girl and The White Rose, is a leading film and stage actress in Germany. --Ed Soohoo