Psychologischer Horror einer Mutter

21.02.2025 | „Mother’s Baby“ im Berlinale-Wettbewerb

Hauptdarstellerin Marie Leuenberger in Mother's Baby. Copyright: The Match Factory

Die Leere in der Stille und das Kraftvolle in der Musik sind zentrale Elemente in Johanna Moders psychologischem Horrorthriller „Mother‘s Baby“, der im Wettbewerb der Berlinale lief. Das fulminante Finale spielt in der Elbphilharmonie.

From Britta Schmeis

If you ask Austrian Director Johanna Moder about the Elbphilharmonie, she goes into raptures. "It's a place of longing and it's amazing what has been created with the materials and the architecture, incredible acoustics, but also a place where you feel safe and secure," she says on the sidelines of the 75th Berlinale. It is the place where her disturbing drama "Mother's Baby" comes to a brilliant end. Johanna Moder and her co-author Arne Kohlweyer had written the Elbphilharmonie into the script from the very beginning. The film received 150,000 euros in support from MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein.

Die Regisseurin Johanna Moder sitzt auf einem roten Sessel vor einer weißen Fotowand — Director Johanna Moder at a Berlinale press conference

Julia (Marie Leuenberger) and Georg (Hans Löw) are happy together, each successful in their own job, she as a conductor, he in the construction industry. But something still seems to be missing for their happiness: a child. As they are unable to conceive naturally, they go to the private clinic of Dr Vilford (Claes Bang, "Dracula", "The Square"), a doctor who at first glance seems charming and trustworthy, but who is also threateningly unpleasant and has an enormous success rate. And Julia does indeed get pregnant on her first attempt. There are complications during the birth and it turns into a traumatic event: without even seeing it, the baby is snatched away from the parents immediately after delivery because of a supposed emergency. When Julia holds the baby in her arms the very next day, she feels strangely alienated with the child.

Labelled as "hysterical"

This distance does not diminish when the little family is back home, when Julia is mainly looking after the child and Georg is back at work. That was the agreement. Both find it difficult to give the child a name, Julia has problems breastfeeding. Above all, Julia has increasing doubts as to whether the baby is really hers. The behaviour of the doctor and the midwife feed this feeling. Julia's environment begins to label her as "hysterical". A term that was often used in the 19th century for women suffering from postpartum depression. Although her feelings do not deceive her, she is not allowed this "motherly feeling". It is one of those contradictions that arise in our society when it comes to motherhood.

Die Regisseurin steht mit ihrem Cast in schicker Abendkleidung auf einem roten Teppich — From left: Johanna Moder, Julia Franz Richter, Hans Löw, Marie Leuenberger and Claes Bang on the red carpet shortly before the world premiere

"We wanted to tell the story of a couple who have already found happiness and still think - whether due to social or hormonal factors - that this happiness also includes having a child," says Johanna Moder, who was born in Graz in 1979 and is herself the mother of two children. At the same time, Julia is in danger of losing her music and her career. "Even a successful woman in a leading position like Julia is often only considered complete in our society when she also has a child," says Johanna Moder.

Julia loses the music

That's why she decided to make her protagonist a conductor. "An artistic profession is of course also more interesting in film than an office job. But my main concern was that Julia loves her job and that she can no longer grasp her profession after giving birth," says the filmmaker, who studied at the Vienna Film Academy under Wolfgang Glück, Michael Haneke and Peter Patzak.

Music and silence play an enormous role in this psychological horror thriller. It was their "finest, most well thought-out work" in terms of the sound design (Gina Keller, Nils Kirchhoff, Guido Keller) and the compositions (Diego Ramos Rodriguez). The sound agonisingly conveys the increasing tension, the constant unease, coupled with Julia's emerging isolation, which drives her into silence and thus into an inner emptiness.

Outstanding Marie Leuenberger

Marie Leuenberger, with whom Johanna Moder recently shot the TV film "Zeit zu beten. Ein Krimi aus Passau" and who most recently impressed in "Verbrannte Erde" by Thomas Arslan, conveys this uncertainty and doubt with an intensity that is impossible to resist. Elegant yet vulnerable, Leuenberger embodies a woman full of inner turmoil with her facial expressions and physicality. There are also allusions and images - including in the form of axolotls - that further heighten the tension and subtle horror.

Johanna Moder's drama has something unreal and yet frighteningly real about it. In the end, however, Julia succeeds in self-empowerment. The Elbphilharmonie as a magical place plays a decisive role in this.