- The title "Tiger-Stripe Woman Waits for Tarzan" is unusual. It is long and a bit shrill. Your previous titles were short and neutral like "The Microscope", "The Philosopher", "The Secret". How did you find the title?

Like with my other films, I knew the title before I created the story. About twenty years ago I read a poem which contained this line in a magazine. From that moment, I planned to make a film with this title. The title touched me. Many years passed and last summer, when I wanted to write a script and reflected on it, I remembered this title. I wanted to make a film about time travel.

A house with five pillars

- The countryside idyll is obviously important to you. It occurs in different films, for example, in "Tarot" or in "The Secret". Is this intentional? Why are this stories set in the countrysite?

Not only the title and time travel, but also the house with five pillars is an important feature of the film. For this house I once wrote a script which wasn't realized. The house fascinated me, it has an aura, it isn't any old house.

- Time travel is a common motif in your films, as in "Supergirl" and "The Philosopher", in some sense even in "The Secret". What fascinates you about the motif of time travel?

Until I was about 25 years old, I used to read a lot of science fiction novels. I loved time travel stories the most. It's basically a very childish thing. Time travel is like a miracle. The phenomen time is an unresolved issue and still occupies people today. Why shouldn't one approach an unresolved issue naively?

What happens to everyday life when a supranatural phenomenon occurs? Everyday life and the miracle, the supranatural all have to come together. Then it interests me.

One aspect which I wanted to emphasize is Frank's unhappiness with his immortality. He longs to be like us, to be normal, and mortal. The love scenes in the film are supposed to illustrate that he is interested in the issue of death. The fusion with another human being is an expression of his desire to be like other humans. In the second love scene with Laura it is all about dying. During the whole time they talk about nothing else.

Narrating like Budd Boetticher

- In your film men have become immortal and women have died out. Why do we find out so little about the state of things in the future?

When Frank tells his story, the audience is not present. We never see the moment when he tells his story, we only see that Laura Luna hears it. In other words, we see her reaction to it. The act of narrating happens elsewhere.

- Why do you leave out the act of narrating? A man from the future would have a lot to tell us.

I wasn't interested in it. I used a model of narration like Budd Boetticher in his seven westerns with Randolph Scott. They all happen according to the same pattern. A man comes to town, something happens, he reacts, a story develops, his past is revealed. When the film is over, the audience has seen the story but also found out about his past, without flashbacks.
The same pattern applies to my film. I was interested in showing Laura Luna's normal reaction. She laughs when she hears that he is 1214 years old. And yet, something piques her interest. Later, Luise joins them and she reacts very differently. She takes it very lightly.

- The actors in this film never before acted for you. Why did you chose these actors? Did you know them from the theatre?

Herbert Fritsch was suggested to me by my assistant Sülbiye Günar. I didn't know him from the theatre. I met him in a café in Berlin Mitte, and we were keen on each other from the first second. At first I wanted him for "Tiger-Stripe Woman…", not for "Just Married", which I had made right before that. Then I sw him at the Volksbühne in "Pension Schöller" and I was so pleased with it that I asked him to play in the other film, too. Cora FRost was also suggested by my assistant. I remembered reading an article about her two years ago in "Tip". Even then I thought that I would like to meet her. She is unusual and special. It was wonderful to make a film with her.
For Laura Luna I had planned to engage an actress from the Volksbühne, but she cancelled two days before filming began. I thought of all the different possibilities and decided to meet with Valeska Hanel who had played a small role in "Just Married" and to give her the role. After three days of filming with her I nearly jumped to the ceiling with happiness.

- Irm Hermann is a surprising and good choice. How did this happen?

Adriana Altaras suggested it and I called Irm Hermann immediately. I Have known her for thirty years, since "Detectives". For some reason we never worked together. Originally, Marquard Bohm was supposed to play the father but he couldn't do it. Four days before the shooting with him began I thought of engaging Rüdiger Vogler, and he immediately agreed. He didn't feel comfortable in his role. He didn't like being father to a grown woman. But I thought he was very good. It all fits together. I consider this film to be an endpoint which might turn into a beginning. We will see.

In paradise

-Why do you show this long scene with the snake eating the mouse?

When Frank comes up to the women with a snake in his hands, Laura Luna says: "Now we are complete." It can only be understood like this: now we have paradise, only the snake was missing.

- Accordingly, one eats the other in paradise?

I don't employ symbolism. You see things, you have associations. For me as a spectator the snake and mouse scene has something to do with occurances between people. Laura Luna has to die because Frank came.

- Did you introduce the snake because of the scene with the mouse?

Not at all. It just happened because the snake had to be fed and we were all surprised how this works. I don't plan ahead of time what is supposed to happen. I work with associations and take things as they are.

Time and Utopia

- Could you have envisged a happier, perhaps less violent ending?

No. The whole thing is utopian. Utopia cannot become real, it can't work. On the first day of writing I knew that Theo would take the revolver out of the glove compartment when they stopped to pick up Frank. I knew on the first day of writing that it would all happen. It can't have a happy end.

- Was it your plan from the beginning to show Luise at Laura's grave at the end?

Not from the beginning, but you had to see the grave, so the title would come up again. Then you realize that Frank must have seen the grave stone. Before, it is only said that he saw the incription on a stone, but not on which one. It's like this with all my films. There is information which only makes sense after a few scenes or at the end of a film. Where you find out the meaning of the information you got before.

- The film is much slower and calmer than "Just Married". Why this contrast?

"Just Married" is extremely elliptical. The whole film lives from the ellipses. "Tiger-Stripe Woman…" is a totally different kind of narrative. There is almost a 1:1 continuity. Only at the end, in the idyll at the hunting lodge, this continuity is interrupted. Time hardly exists any longer. We find out incidentally that a long time has passed. At the end, the father says that they were happy for eight weeks. We don't see these eight weeks. Time in the hunting lodge is like time on Ureparapara in "Study of an Island". Time no longer exists. You can't see that they spent half a year there. I didn't plan it but I knew this utopian situation always means the extinction of time, an abolition of time.

The conversation between Rudolf Thome, Gudrun Max and Karlheinz Oplustil took place January 15th, 1998 in Berlin.