Alma - The Film

Part 1: In my Fathers Garden

Born in 1879, the daughter of prominent Viennese landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler, ALMA grows up in a privileged environment;
Gustav Klimt, co–founder of the Viennese Sezession and brilliant Jugendstil painter, is in and out of her parents’ house, indeed stealing a very first kiss from ALMA; theatre director Max Burckhard fosteres her nascent interest in classical and modern literature, while composer Alexander Zemlinsky is her composition tutor and becomes her first lover. She allowes him to kiss and caress her and permits him every intimacy but the ultimate, thereby almost driving him to madness. The relationship is an emotional roller–coaster until, at the age of 22, ALMA decides against him and in favour of composer and conductor Gustav Mahler, 20 years older than she.

ALMA, »the most beautiful girl in Vienna«, takes a bold step, causing a sensation in Vienna: she marries Mahler who, as Director of the Royal Opera, holds one of the most powerful positions in the Viennese music scene.
ALMA is to share with him the last nine years of his life. The price she pays is high. She has to give up her own artistic aspirations, and the desire to become a composer herself is nipped in the bud. Mahler wishes her to be a housewife and mother, not a rival. ALMA gives him two daughters, one of whom dies young, while the other, Anna, becomes a sculptress.

After eight years of marriage, ALMA seeks consolation for all her years of disappointment and privation in the arms of the young architect Walter Gropius who, with the Bauhaus movement has a major impact on modern architecture. He is the only man who, in ALMA’s words, »is her racial equal«. After the years with Mahler, which have been marked by privation and austerity, ALMA’s pent–up longing to be taken seriously as a woman now explodes within her. The two become utterly absorbed in unbridled nights of love.

The result of this is an encounter between Gustav Mahler and Sigmund Freud, who is consulted by Mahler after the revelation of the relationship between ALMA and Gropius. This meeting is very mysterious; it takes place in the Dutch health resort of Leiden, and lasts just briefly. Scarcely any documents exist revealing exactly what takes place, but it becomes evident that Freud penetrates the essence of the relationship, which was marked by a mutual longing for a father and mother substitute. ALMA and Mahler had thus been living under the shadow of the taboo of incest.

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