Interview with Nina Hoss on “Zikaden”: “The point of dying is a good one”

In the new movie “Zikaden”, Nina Hoss (49) plays a woman who takes care of her elderly parents, questions herself and her marriage and is confronted with the finiteness of life. Even in an interview with the news agency Spot on News, the actress shows no fear of contact with death. A conversation over the tightness, let go and the moment of dying.

Nina Hoss: The meeting of all of these topics without being killed. That you can collide opposites with which we all have to do. The film tells of it with a nice ease. This corresponds to me a lot because I always have the feeling that both, the heavy and the light, grief and joy, madness and reason, everything runs next to each other and is always there, at the same time.

Hoss: Not really. I also experienced it myself. I have both accompanied my parents and that took the fear of death.

Hoss: At the moment of dying, I think it’s actually easy. It is not easy in front of it. That’s why you hang on life. It is crazy to observe what a person can stand and survive, for example with diseases. Then you ask yourself: what is that that you hang in this way and cannot let go? I think what is difficult is to leave behind the people you love. But the point of dying is a good one.

Hoss: I just saw that the moment of letting go has something peaceful.

Hoss: Absolutely, that’s human too. But that has already gone through millions in front of us, we will do it.

Hoss: I think you often can’t get it with you at that moment because you have so much to do with the organization of care and so. For me, the film is also about considering: what is such a human life? What do you leave? Like the father, who can no longer think clearly, but still has to write down what happened. Is it really important? Or is everything fleeting? And how do you go with dignity?

Hoss: Yes! That is the trick. [lacht] Men become more sentimental in old age so that you cannot be angry with them. You are forgiving. And often it is the case that you can’t easily forgive the mother because you have lived through everything with her while the father was simply not there. I think that’s the reason why men have it easier with their children than the mothers even in old age. Although not always, for example, it wasn’t the case with me.

Hoss: I also had help – that can’t be done without.

Hoss: It was a matter of course for me, but you need help. I don’t know. I would also find it bad when parents expect it so naturally, especially in the living conditions in which we are today, where children often no longer live where the parents are.