Tuesday February 26th at 6.00 p.m.
This film also caries a sub-title, ‘How violence develops and where it can lead’. This suggests one of the themes that are central to the story. Set in Germany at the time when the activities of the Red Army Faction led to increasing repressive laws and a campaign approaching hysteria in the mainstream media, this film counterposes individual liberties against powerful state and commercial institutions. The titular heroine is caught up in a web of media and state scrutiny. The tragic developments in her world taken her far from her original situation.
The film was both scripted and directed by the then partners, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. Both are key members of the New German Cinema of the period. The story is adapted from a novel by Heinrich Böll, himself a radical leader in the German literary world. The novel has also been adapted as a television film, a radio drama and an opera.
The novel opens with a line that Wikipedia quotes:
“The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of Bild-Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional, nor fortuitous, but unavoidable.” [Bild-Zeitung is a tabloid daily published by Axel Sprinter A.G.].
A similar but somewhat different line appears in the end credits of the film.
This suggests how closely the film criticises actual German media and institutions. Here it follows the novel after Boll himself suffered as a target by the German press. The film follows the plot of the novel in offering an increasing melodramatic story. But it also offers a sensitive portrayal of the young female victim at it’s heart, played with conviction by Angela Winkler.
Offering stories that have a basis in real life and history is a hall mark of the film work of Margarethe von Trotta. This title is one of four in a retrospective programme distributed by the Independent Cinemas Office. The Picture House has already screened the powerful biopic of Rosa Luxemburg. The other two films in the programme are her first solo feature The Second Awakening of Christa Klages / Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages (1978) and The German Sisters / Die bleierne Zeit (1981). The latter is a classic of the New German Cinema. Both will screen at the Picture House, The German Sisters on March 10th.
This title, now transferred to a DCP, runs for 106 minutes and includes English sub-titles.
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