You may not recognize her name, but actress Barbara Sukowa has pretty much seen it all over her long career. She was the muse of acclaimed filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and has worked with directors such as David Cronenberg, Lars von Trier, Sebastián Lelio, and Agnieszka Holland. She won Best Actress at both the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. She’s starred in German films, American Indies, Hollywood blockbusters, and cable television series. And we’re not even going to touch her impressive stage resume. So, it goes a little without saying that the fact she was willing to star in Filippo Meneghetti’s “Two of Us” (“Deux”) was a major compliment to the first-time filmmaker.
READ MORE: “Another Round” and “Two of Us” among 15 shortlisted International Film Oscar contenders
Sukowa recalls, “I met him and I thought he was really very passionate about the project and very insistent on Martine Chevallier’s and my cast because he could have financed the film earlier if he had taken some young, beautiful women.”
“Two of Us” centers on two seventy-something women, Madeline (Chevallier) and Nina (Sukowa) who have kept their relationship secret from Madeline’s now-adult children for decades. When Madeline suffers a stroke Nina finds herself having to fight her way back into her lover’s life.
Considering the nature of the story it’s hard to imagine it playing out with younger actors. And, during a conversation earlier in the year, Meneghetti didn’t mention any such issues with financing whatsoever. Then again, Sukowa knows this industry. She knows the pressures he fought off to recast.
“Well, he’s very charming. He probably didn’t want to do that to us but it’s the truth,” Sukowa says. “I mean, come on. Producers are not jumping on a film about two old ladies, and I think he brought in this kind of obsessive quality and a little bit of a thriller element.”
Pivoting, Sukowa adds, “Also, what’s really important in this film is the families. We’re always talking about these two older women but it’s also about how the family reacts. That’s always very different if it’s your own family than if it’s just a friend. I’m sure these kids of Madeleine in the film probably would have no problem if their friend or acquaintance is homosexual, but if it’s their own parent? Especially the mother? That’s always a whole different thing.”
The German-born Sukowa says what initially drew her to the project was Meneghetti’s well-written script and the fact the characters were both complex and ambiguous to an extent.
“What I really found quite fascinating was that it was a love story and also an erotic love story about two older women because I had seen love stories of younger women, and I thought it was quite brave of this director to tell this story about these two older women,” Sukowa says. “I also was kind of fascinated when I found out that the director and writer was a young man, and I was wondering, ‘Why would he be interested in a story about older people?'”
But it was the fact that the film goes against the ageist grain of pop culture that really spoke to her.
“There’s so much emphasis on beauty, and being hip, and being cool, and all that,” Sukowa says. “I think, especially for younger women, it’s nice, interesting to see that there is life after beauty, that there is still life, and people, especially young people, they’re under so much pressure these days to be always great, and successful, and good looking and have the best things. I think it’s probably relaxing also for people to see that ‘No, you can have cash and excitement, and life when you’re older.’ Life doesn’t stop after the beauty is gone.”
The film debuted slightly under the radar at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, but it charmed the 2021 French Oscar selection committee which chose it over other hyped contenders such as François Ozon’s “Summer of ’85” and Maïmouna Doucouré’s “Cuties.” Sukowa admits they were “totally surprised” over the selection.
“We made this small movie and we loved to work on it,” Sukowa says. “[When] we were selected in the shortlist for France for the selection, we were already so surprised, and now we are nominated for the Cesar [the French Oscar], and then the Golden Globe, every single time, a complete surprise.”
The film also made the shortlist for the International Film Academy Award and has a good shot of making the final five. In hindsight, Sukowa might have realized how impactful the film was after friends of all ages began watching it. She recalls, “I was really surprised at how emotionally people were, and not only gay people but also heterosexual, younger people, older people.”
The fact the story is set in a small town in France where being “out” may not be as easy as in major cities. During TIFF, Sukowa remembers some men from the Middle East coming up to her conveying how much the movie moved them.
“They had tears in their eyes and they said, ‘This is our story because we had to come to America, to Canada, because we couldn’t live our love.’ We heard from people from Russia,” Sukowa says. “I became aware that there are still so many places in the world where homosexuality is actually forbidden, and there are even places where homosexuality, there’s still the death penalty on it. We are so used to living in these metropolitan cities but there are big parts of the world where it’s not normal.”
As Academy members begin to vote for the Oscar nominations the Brooklyn, New York-based Sukowa is already on her way to England for her next big project.
“I’m doing [a new film] with Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dali, I’m going to play Gala, his wife, and Mary Harron, you probably know her from ‘American Psycho,‘ she’s directing,” Sukowa says. “I’m really, really excited about this project. We’re starting shooting on the 16th, and of course, I have to go to quarantine and all that. That’s going to be interesting.
“Two of Us” is available on PVOD.