Bobby (Bobby Sommer) is driving to Salzburg, picking up strangers along the way. He likes the company. His friend is in a coma in hospital, so random conversations seem to ease the pain. Austrian helmer Sebastian Brameshuber breaks down his Berlinale Panorama entry London [+lire aussi :
interview : Sebastian Brameshuber
fiche film].

Cineuropa: Conversations in cars are peculiar because you are not looking at each other. For some people, this makes things easier.
Sebastian Brameshuber: I experienced this when I used shared rides. I noticed how close you get to complete strangers in that intimate setting. You’re sitting there, relaxed, while tearing down the highway, efficiently moving towards a destination without doing anything. There’s also the curiosity about who you’re dealing with and the noncommittal nature of the encounter because you’re likely never to see each other again. When speaking with a stranger, you can bring a particular version of yourself to the forefront or even create fiction.

As you said, you spend a lot of time looking ahead. This creates a dialogue in which some moments resemble a monologue. There are parallels here to the setup used in psychoanalysis. With each passing kilometre, you lose yourself in the conversation, which can meander between everyday questions and personal themes. Then, there are moments when no one says anything. It’s just about driving and the road carries the situation.

London is an odd road movie – he has a goal, yet he keeps going back and forth. Why were you interested in this kind of journey?
I’m drawn to the varied repetition of motifs. Once the rhythm is established, it brings heightened attention to detail, which was important for Bobby’s character. The reason for his travels is revealed in fragments throughout the film, with each new ride. His character develops over time through speaking and listening to his passengers, some of whom mirror him. They become possible versions of a younger Bobby and the lives he could have led.

As in all road movies, Bobby isn’t actually driving to reach a physical location; he wants to reach a mental destination. He’s trying to reach his past and discover what could have been. However, he can only look at it through the rearview mirror. Each new ride adds to a sense of futility: he won’t find what he’s looking for at the hospital with Arthur. At the same time, it’s clear why he keeps trying. He finds comfort in the road and in the company of younger people. By the time the movie ends, we’ve come full circle.

It's funny how these discussions go from love to Avatar [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] being the “Marxist masterpiece”.
All of Bobby’s passengers were cast, but there was no script or written dialogue, or any set guidelines for these conversations. It was very free. I was surprised, or rather relieved, by the intensity of the dialogue. It was exactly what I’d hoped for based on my own experiences during shared rides. Everything came together in a truly surreal way: the playful and sweet interaction between Bobby and Akin, the young supermarket apprentice; the emotional depth of the scene with Polina, the psychology student from Ukraine; the touching exchange about Cliff’s late father; and the almost philosophical conversation with Lana, when Bobby delivers that striking line: “This is not endless, this life.”

Who is Bobby to you? Why did you decide to follow him?
I first met Bobby Sommer when I recorded him reading a poem for my film Of Stains, Scrap and Tires. I knew him as the lead in Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film], which I greatly admired, and he also worked as a driver for the Viennale. He also reminded me of Warren Oates in Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop, one of my favourite road movies.

He told me about his life, and I shared my idea for this film. From that moment on, we were in constant dialogue. I thought Bobby would be a perfect fit because I knew him as someone with a genuine interest in life and people. I also became fascinated by the West Autobahn because the view along this motorway is literally a designed landscape. The Nazis wanted to create the most picturesque route possible between Salzburg and Vienna.

When my father died in 2019, I drove up and down this road in a state of mourning. I started thinking about personal stories around me: in the cars in front of, next to and behind me. I wanted my main character to be someone who was grieving or longing for something. London is a portrait of Bobby, but it contains fictional elements only indirectly related to his real personality. A lot of time had passed since we first discussed the project in 2014. He could no longer talk to someone close to him, because death came too soon. And he still had so much to say. Somehow, life organically reached the point where we were both ready to make this film.

The festival describes the feature as “neither a documentary nor fiction”. To me, it works as both.
People like to talk about the borders between documentary and fiction, but there are none. They flow into each other, always in motion and negotiation. What appeals to me in particular is creating a tipping point and keeping the question of reality and fiction constantly simmering.

I never quite believed in “the kindness of strangers”, but this film does. Did it change the way you see people?
The car in London is a utopian space, but it’s one that I would like to strive for as an individual. I have no illusions; it won’t always succeed. However, at a time when divisions have come to the forefront, it was important to make a film that emphasises what we have in common.