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Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen

The life story of the multi-talented German nun Hildegard von Bingen. The film portrays an original woman - best known as a composer and religious visionary - whose grand claims often run co... Read all The life story of the multi-talented German nun Hildegard von Bingen. The film portrays an original woman - best known as a composer and religious visionary - whose grand claims often run counter to the patriarchal world around her. The monks and nuns at the convent become a kind... Read all The life story of the multi-talented German nun Hildegard von Bingen. The film portrays an original woman - best known as a composer and religious visionary - whose grand claims often run counter to the patriarchal world around her. The monks and nuns at the convent become a kind of family, offering both confidants and enemies. For example Jutta, struggling with her j... Read all

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Tip O’Neill told us "all politics is local," and I suppose that applies as well to a cloistered religious order as to a city. "Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen" is about a remarkable 12th century woman named Hildegard von Bingen, who was cloistered with a Benedictine order at a young age and rose to become its leader, the author of spiritual books, a composer of music and an expert in herbal medicine. Although beatified, she was never elevated to sainthood, but is a saint for many feminists and holistic practitioners.

As embodied here by the powerful presence of Barbara Sukowa , she was a considerable woman, and succeeded in gaining almost everything she desired, despite a church hierarchy controlled by men. From the age of 4, she reported visions of God, and as these continued, they gave her authority and won her followers. Indeed, although in a cloister, she was permitted to go on speaking journeys and became quite widely known.

She also succeeded in moving her nuns from within the walls of the male monastery and building their own separate retreat, and then another. This she did despite the fierce objections of her superior, Abbot Kuno ( Alexander Held ), by appealing over his head to the local archbishop. Still refused permission, she apparently fell into a coma and was revived only by the presence of God. Or that is what she said.

What went on in the mind of this woman, essentially uneducated, who could not read the Scriptures but learned, wrote her books in her own modified alphabet and composed one of the largest surviving groups of Gregorian chant? That’s what fascinates the German writer-director, Margarethe von Trotta, who makes a choice to view Hildegard’s life in its externals and reveal few of the thoughts behind her sometimes forbidding facade. We never know what she’s thinking. That’s tantalizing.

In the small, closed world where she was raised, she clung to Jutta ( Lena Stolze ), the child who accompanied her to the cloister. They were "given to the church" as a sort of tithe, their entire lives decided before puberty. It is important to Hildegard to be right, and to be seen as right, and Jutta is her satellite and idolater. A new novice, Richardis von Stade ( Hannah Herzsprung ), enters the convent, and is favored by Hildegard, and an emotional triangle forms that is all the more desperate because none of the three recognize the lesbianism that may be at its core. In another time or place, their interdependent relationships would be recognized as romantic, but here all is sublimated in religion and a struggle for moral supremacy.

Was Hildegard faking her visions and comas? Yes, probably, but she didn’t realize it. She seems to have been spellbound by her own legend, and if her deathlike state during one crisis is psychosomatic, it is no less deathlike. She seems to have been an entirely sincere woman, self-deceived to her core. And a good woman, too, whose gifts in so many areas suggest an intelligence that found all the expression it could behind the cloister walls. One of the monks, Brother Volmar ( Heino Ferch ), recognizes her gifts and helps her to realize them, and so her passion is released in words, music and church politics rather than in madness.

Von Trotta is one of the most important feminist directors of recent years. See especially " The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum " (1975), "Marianne and Juliane" (1981) and "Rosa Luxemburg" (1986). Here she declines to impose a set of feminist ideas. She’s intrigued by the well-known story of Hildegard. The film is intense, measured and too slow, but absorbing. What was life like for this brilliant woman in a world entirely without stature or recognition for women? How did she play the cards she was dealt as a child? How did she maneuver? How aware was she of her uniqueness?

Barbara Sukowa never quite lets us know. She carefully avoids modern body and facial language, and stays within the limits of the age. So does von Trotta. We must enter these lives with our imaginations, and realize that no matter what rules society lays down for women — for anyone — ways can sometimes be found to prevail on one’s own terms.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen movie poster

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2010)

110 minutes

Barbara Sukowa as Hildegard von Bingen

Heino Ferch as Volmar

Hannah Herzsprung as Richardis

Alexander Held as Kuno

Lena Stolze as Jutta

Written and directed by

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Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

2009, Biography/Drama, 1h 50m

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Beautifully filmed and suitably reverent, Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen examines the life of the 12th-century mystic and finds compelling modern parallels. Read critic reviews

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COMMENTS

Vision (2009 film)
Shot in the original medieval cloisters in the German countryside, in Vision, von Trotta and Sukowa create a portrait of a woman who has emerged from the
Vision
The life story of the multi-talented German nun Hildegard von Bingen. The film. Play trailer2:02.
Vision
Hildegard von Bingen was truly a woman ahead of her time. A visionary in every sense of the word, this famed 12th-century Benedictine nun
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen movie review (2010)
"Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen" is about a remarkable 12th century woman named Hildegard von Bingen, who was cloistered with
Vision (2009)
Untitled (Von Trotta Project), Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen. MPAA Rating ... Mongrel Media; Métropole Films Distribution; Zeitgeist Films.
Vision (2009)
2009. Production Company. Celluloid Dreams; Celluloid Dreams; Cinemien; Film und Medienstiftung NRW. Distribution Company. MONGREL MEDIA/ZEITGEIST FILMS;
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009) photo 8 ... Von Trotta's film is competently made, with impressive lighting and design.
Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen
In VISION, New German Cinema auteur Margarethe von Trotta reunites with ... 2009 Tele München Fernsch GmBH Co Produktionsgesellschaft, Clasart Film – und
Amazon.com: Vision
Lushly shot in original medieval cloisters of the fairytale like German countryside, Vision is the profoundly inspirational portrait of Hildegard von Bingen, a
Watch Vision
Lushly shot in original medieval cloisters of the fairytale-like German countryside, Vision is a profoundly inspirational portrait of a woman who has emerged