1971-1980ArthouseDramaGermanyPeter Handke

Peter Handke – Die Linkshändige Frau AKA The Left-Handed Woman (1978)


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S y n o p s i s
A woman living in the Paris suburbs struggles with a loveless marriage and apathy toward her family and friends as she spends her days quietly wandering about her house. Austrian playwright and novelist Peter Handke contributed screenplays to a number of films by director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick). Here (in a film that Wenders produced), he provides both the scenario (adapting his novel of the same name) and direction for this meditative examination of domestic ennui.

R e v i e w
Of the many films by Peter Handke (either alone or with his partner Wim Wenders) this may be the most appealing. It is also not recommended for modern viewers accustomed to Hollywood’s rhythm -it is long, slow paced and even difficult to follow sometimes. I strongly recommend viewers to read the book too, although they may not find too many additional clues there, for Handke’s style is to reflect the character’s actions rather than their thoughts (which, by the way, should be the perfect cinematic approach). Some people have wasted their time especulating about the woman’s reasons to divorce her husband: the french essayist Gilles Lipovetsky even said that her “lack of good reasons” is a sign of modern life’s emptiness. In fact, we can not say she does not have reasons: only we are not allowed to see them on the screen. One might even think that Handke himself did not care to build the woman’s inner thoughts (and if he did, he sure did not share them with us). The movie, and the book, are about communication between us, or at least this is one of its possible readings. Do we really know what is on other people’s mind, even people real close to us? The answer is no: we can only talk of what they tell us, or what we might hint, but how many times had we been completely wrong about somebody? The movie defies the usual assumption of an omniscient camera: the woman would not share her thoughts with the viewers, and this leaves us with a sense of discomfort. We feel compelled to find motivations that are just not there. Just the fact that the movie makes us think about it would be enough to qualify it as a masterpiece. (IMDb user comment)

“Sie kam mit andern aus einem Untergrundschacht
Sie aß mit andern in einem Schnellimbiß
Sie saß mit andern in einem Waschsalon
aber einmal habe ich sie allein vor einem Zeitungsaushang stehen sehen

Sie kam mit andern aus einem Büroturm
Sie drängte mit andern an einen Marktstand
Sie saß mit andern um einen Sandspielplatz
aber einmal habe ich sie durch ein Fenster allein schachspielen sehen

Sie lag mit andern auf einem Parkrasen
Sie lachte mit andern in einem Spiegelkabinett
Sie schrie mit andern auf einder Achterbahn
Und dann sah ich sie allein nur noch durch meine Wunschträume gehen

Aber heute in meinem offenen Haus:
Der Telefonhörer auf einmal andersherum
der Bleistift links neben dem Notizblock
daneben die Teetasse mit dem Henkel nach links
daneben der andersherum geschälte Apfel (nicht zu Ende geschält)
Die Vorhänge von links aufgezogen
Und die Haustürschlüssel in der linken Jackentasche
Du hast dich verraten, Linkshänderin!
Oder wolltest du mir ein Zeichen geben?

Ich möchte dich IN EINEM FREMDEN ERDTEIL sehen
Denn da werde ich dich unter den andern endlich allein sehen
Und du wirst unter tausend andern MICH sehen
Und wir werden endlich aufeinander zugehen”

Peter Handke, Die linkshändige Frau
1.78GB | 1h 51mn | 732×572 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/C1A3A0C2FDDE1AD/Peter_Handke_-_(1978)_The_Left-Handed_Woman.mkv

Language(s):German
Subtitles:English

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