Director's Commentary
»Summer. Blue skies, the mountains not so far away, sun, then night, sun again. Night. Sun.
A weekend in the country. A gas station, a country road, meadows, cows, insects, the green shadows of grasses and bushes. The verticals of the trees against each other, whispering geometric space between them. Crickets. A whole world to be a person in. A place for happiness. And the world of twins who cannot separate, who struggle to separate. The more they struggle to get away from each other, the more they are drawn to their shared world. There is no "one" here. There's only two. For me it's a classic drama: we know their fate. And see it fulfilled. And as in all Greek tragedies, any resistance will only bring them closer to the end that fate intended for them.
"People are the creatures of freedom" says Heidegger. Are they? And what exactly is meant by freedom here? To fulfill one's destiny to its very depths (the Sartre Way) or to escape it? But to be honest, I don't necessarily believe in fate. I believe in strong stories.
You have to imagine for almost three hours the brightest summer day, interrupted by occasional thunderstorms, in the most beautiful postcard nature of the Alpine foothills, in exactly the landscape for which King Ludwig had Neuschwanstein built. And he was right! So much beauty means tragedy.«
Philip Gröning