Oskar Panizza’s The Council of Love (1895) is a blasphemous play set in 1495, during the first recorded outbreak of syphilis, which Panizza satirically presents as the punishment from Satan for sexually active humans. As a result, Panizza was imprisoned for obscenity. Schroeter alternates scenes from the Panizza’s work with a dramatization of his trial, presenting the play as an expressionist spectacle performed by actors wearing exaggerated makeup who gesture and grimace grotesquely. The film thus forms a bridge between Schroeter’s use of tableaux in his early experiments with the political urgency of his 1980s films. On the eve of the AIDS crisis, Schroeter is presciently worried about disease as an excuse for governmental repression and the oppression of sexuality.Read More »
Kurt Raab
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Werner Schroeter – Liebeskonzil AKA Council of Love (1982)
Werner Schroeter1981-1990ExperimentalGermanyPerformance -
Ulli Lommel – Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe AKA The Tenderness of Wolves (1973)
Ulli Lommel1971-1980DramaHorrorQuote:
Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover, was a German serial killer responsible for the murders of two dozen boys and young men during the so-called ‘years of crisis’ between the wars. His case would partly inspire Fritz Lang’s M, and its central character portrayed by Peter Lorre, as well as this forgotten gem from 1973.Tenderness of the Wolves treats the viewer to a few weeks in the company of a killer. Baby-faced and shaven-headed, in a manner that recalls both M and F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Haarmann is a fascinating, repulsive figure. Using his status as a police informant to procure his victims, he dismembers their bodies after death and sells the flesh to restaurants, dumping the remainder out of sight. This isn’t an easy film to watch, but it certainly gets under the skin…Read More »
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Peer Raben – Heute spielen wir den Boß (1981)
1981-1990ComedyGermanyPeer RabenFilm extras take possession of a bogus film production company and acting as ideal world of film to persuade one associates mother-in-law of marriage.
Starring some of RWF’s familiar cast and himself in an uncredited mini-role.Read More »
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder – Warum läuft Herr R. Amok? AKA Why Does Herr R. Run Amok (1970)
1961-1970ArchitectureArthouseDramaGermanyRainer Werner FassbinderFrom Jim’s Reviews:
Disclosure: I have written the liner notes for Fantoma’s DVD release of this film. With a few changes, that essay appears below.Image”You hear the one about the guy goes into a bakery, orders a loaf of bread? ‘White or black?’ the baker asks. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ the guy says. ‘It’s for a blind person.'”
How do we move from these opening words of Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? – one of five rapid-fire jokes delivered by Herr R.’s co-workers – to its climactic killing spree? Like the title, that’s another gnawing, and resonant, question.Read More »