Hanna Schygulla

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It’s a non-traditional black and white film based on the 1894 novel by Theodor Fontane. It’s for an audience that is more aware and welcomes something addressed to the intellect, rather than the way the average casual moviegoer sees a film expecting a story handed to him on a silver platter with a beginning, a middle and an end (usually a happy ending). This is not a film for the casual moviegoer or the critic chasing down blockbusters. Director-writer Rainer Werner Fassbinder has said “It’s a film that really only works in the German language.” What makes the film so difficult for an outsider, is that much of Fontane is nuanced only for the German and therefore someone unfamiliar with the finer cultural points or historical facts will have a tough time of it. Fassbinder based the film on the parts of the novel by Theodor Fontane he agreed with (discarding the parts of the book he disagreed with) and did not make it into a topic about a woman as the title would suggest (a debate grew between the film’s star Hanna Schygulla, who wanted to play it as a story about the titular character; thankfully she couldn’t budge Fassbinder off his intended aim to keep it as a societal moral play and as a result we have a film that is full of conviction and as faithful to a book as you can possibly be).Read More »

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For his feature debut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder fashioned an acerbic, unorthodox crime drama about a love triangle involving the small-time pimp Franz (Fassbinder), his prostitute girlfriend, Joanna (future Fassbinder mainstay Hanna Schygulla), and his gangster friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel). With its minimalist tableaux and catalog of New Wave and Hollywood references, this is a stylishly nihilistic cinematic statement of intent.Read More »

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In the opening scene of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Rio Das Mortes, Hanna Schygulla repeats to herself a passage from a childcare book about achievement, indirectly teasing the two protagonists who are to be introduced later. Mike and Günther, feeling unfulfilled by infrequent employment and soured relationships, decide to unravel the mysteries of a treasure map, plotting a trip to Peru in the hopes of finding gold. Mike’s girlfriend Hanna doubts the men’s ability to organise such an excursion, but is crushed when they succeed, and tries to find whatever means she can to stop them.Read More »

Plot
In May of 1983, a man turns 49 and, with his 17-year old son, journeys to the village in Baden that he left 40 years before. He wants to discover what happened then, the truth about an affair his mother had with a young Polish prisoner of war, how the authorities came to learn of it, the lovers’ arrest, and the aftermath. While his son takes Polaroid photographs, he retraces the steps of his childhood and interviews those who should remember. The story is disclosed in flashbacks that focus on the lovers (Paulina and Stanislaus), on a jealous and conniving neighbor, and on Mayer, the local SS commander who wants to find a way out of inevitable consequences.

Nominated
Venice Film Festival – Golden Lion – 1983Read More »

Moving back and forth between present and past, Antonieta tells the story of Antonieta Rivas Mercado – a writer, social activist, and important patron of the arts – against a backdrop of the political turmoils of the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath.Read More »

Olga and Ruth become friends. Olga is independent, separated from her husband, living with an immigrant pianist… Read More »

Plot summary
This is the story of a couple who do not want to have children of their own, and a pregnant, single woman who needs a home for awhile, the relationship between the three protagonists is strange, at the very least. After Anna (Hanna Schygulla) and Gordon (Niels Arestrup) invite the expecting Malvina (Ornella Muti) to live with them, Anna becomes neurotically jealous and attempts suicide but is thwarted and in the end decides she really wants to be there for the baby when he/she comes into the world. Rather than trying to get rid of Malvina and the baby, both Gordon and Anna are in agreement on keeping it.Read More »

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A loose contemporary adaptation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the middle installment of Wim Wenders’ “road movie trilogy” opens with a scene that’s pure Wenders — a young man gazes out his window while American rock rollicks out of the LP player, until he suddenly puts both fists through the glass, quietly sobbing. That’s Wilhelm (Rudiger Vogler), who grudgingly accepts that, if he’s ever to become the writer he wants to be, he has to overcome his dislike for people and venture out to accumulate experiences. In place of inspiration, the journey hooks him up with a group of fellow loners, the “dead souls of Germany”: an apathetic actress (Hanna Schygulla), an aged ex-Nazi whose nose bleeds from “remembering” (Hans Christian Blech), his mute street-performer travelling companion (a teenage, almost tomboyish Nastassja Kinski), a pudgy poet (Peter Kern), and a suicidally bereft industrialist (Ivan Desny). Read More »

Two different opinions on Händler der vier Jahreszeiten

Hans Epp (Hans Hirschmuller) betrays few traces of his eroding morale as he lyrically announces his daily merchandise into the open air. He is an unassuming fruit vendor, diligently making his rounds through the residential streets, accompanied by his highly critical wife, Irmgard (Irm Hermann). After chastising him for hand delivering an order to an ex-lover (Ingrid Caven), Hans escapes her incessant complaints by abandoning his cart and going into a nearby bar. Soon, the sad ritual of his empty existence emerges: arguing with his wife, drinking excessively, lamenting lost personal and professional opportunities.Read More »