Robert Lebeck

Documentary portrait of the actress Romy Schneider, in which director Frederick Baker tries to form an overall picture from the facets of image, myth, real life and screen persona.

The camera loved her face, it was made for close-ups. And Romy Schneider loved and needed the camera - the film camera as well as the cameras of photographers and paparazzi. Julia Benkert's cinematic exploration of Romy Schneider's many faces shows that the actress's fascinating camera presence has lost none of its intensity even 27 years after her death - regardless of whether she was stylized as a veiled bride and glamorous diva, as in the French film "L'enfer" (1964), or whether she exposed herself to the camera without make-up, as in Hans Jürgen Syberberg's documentary "Portrait of a Face" (1966). Without make-up and in close-up, she talks about her fears and doubts - to this day, the film is an authentic testimony to Romy Schneider's deep inner turmoil. Her husband Harry Meyen had it extensively censored because he thought his wife was too sad.