Lynn (Vicky Krieps) is a little shy. She wears practical pants and shirts, pulls back her gray-brown hair and her shoulders droop. She rarely interacts with others. But at the same time there is a quiet manic resolve. One day Lynn stands in front of her ex-manager’s door, walks in without saying a word and reestablishes a sexual relationship with him. She gets her old job back as a chambermaid. Lynn likes to clean. When she is alone in a room, she tries on the clothes of the hotel guests. Once when the room’s occupant came back before she was gone done, she had to hide under the bed. She realized she got kick out of it. She starts to spend more time under the beds of guests. She witnesses a dominatrix and her client while under the bed and is fascinated by the interaction. She hires the dominatrix to visit her at home.
There is little conversation in THE CHAMBERMAID. The sparse and very objective dialogue between Lynn and her boss, Lynn and her mother, Lynn and her therapist is added later and comes across as if detached from the images, almost as if it is off-stage commentary. Will you come visit me again? Asks the mother. It’s pretty far, Lynn says. The film is told via its images and the gaps between the images. Like Lynn the film gets its kick from its self-indulgent, balanced combination of closeness and mystery. Under the bed, in their pajamas, Lynn is extremely close to the hotel guests, yet what exactly plays out in the bed escapes her gaze. Ingo Haeb candidly shows in his adaptation of the novel THE CHAMBERMAID by Markus Orth the obsessions of his main character – but what is going on and why for this young woman as she piece by piece comes out of her isolation is not unraveled in this film.

Hendrike Bake