The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Starring:Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake, Eva Mattes, Gisela Fackeldey, Irm Hermann
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder adapted his own play for this modern twist on The Women, the great all-female Hollywood classic of sex and social conventions in high society. Margit Carstensen is successful dress designer Petra, Irm Hermann her silent, obedient secretary/servant/Girl Friday Marlene (whom she alternately abuses and ignores), and Hanna Schygulla the callow, shallow young Karin, a seemingly naive blond beauty Petra treats as part protegée, part pet, until the calculating kitten turns on Petra. Michael Ballhaus's prowling camera finds Marlene silently hovering on the borders of Petra's dramas, looking on through doors and windows like an adoring lover from afar. Bouncing between catty melodrama and naked emotional need, it's a quintessentially Fassbinder portrait of doomed love, jealousy, and social taboos. The DVD features commentary by Fassbinder scholar Jane Shattuc, the early 1966 Fassbinder short films The City Tramp and The Little Chaos, the bonus documentary Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and filmographies. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews:

She can dish it out, but she can't take it.......2007-06-04

It is always interesting watching a film where virtually every character (with the exception of Petra's daughter, an innocent victim in all this) is more or less dislikeable. More than one person has found this film inaccessible due to the fact that nearly everyone has mixed motives & hidden agenda.

This also makes it impossible to take satisfaction in Petra's personal disintegration, since Karin is equally manipulative & self-serving. Petra's supreme arrogance makes it impossible for her to consider the notion that others might be able to exploit her just as she exploits others...while the viewer may see her comeuppance in the distance, it is a true shock to Petra when she is discarded. Ironically, it is when she has gotten what she deserves that she becomes the most sympathetic to the viewer.

Nobody should go into this movie expecting a lot of action or great cinematography...the claustrophobic nature of the film very much reflects the stage origins of this screenplay. Lots of dialogue, no action, a lot of not-very-nice characters...this movie will not be for everybody, definitely. However, this doesn't mean that it is not a very fine film.

There is nothing to review.......2007-05-07

I would like to review this film but I can not because I have not received it yet. Apparently, you have sent it three times but never got to me. It is like a joke. Can you check your tracking mail number and make a claim to whoever in the post?

Regards,

Jose

"I think people need each other, they're made that way. But they haven't learnt how to live together." - Petra von Kant.......2007-02-24

"The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" (1972) - was the first Fassbinder's film I saw many years ago in Moscow and it had started my fascination and interest in the work of the enormously talented man who was a writer/director/producer/editor/actor for almost all his movies. "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" is a screen adaptation of the earlier Fassbinder's play and it never leaves the apartment of Petra Von Kant, an arrogant, sarcastic, and successful fashion designer who constantly mistreats and humiliates her always silent and obedient assistant Marianne (Irm Hermann, with whom Fassbinder made 24 movies). As a background for Petra's apartment, Fassbinder uses the blowup of Poussin's painting "Midas and Bacchus." The use of the mural is ironic on more than one level. Nude Bacchus stands in the center of the mural and is the only male presence in a film populated entirely with women. Petra, not unlike legendary Midas wished for herself a golden girl, young and beautiful Karin with golden hair (Hanna Schygulla, another Fassbinder's muse with whom he made over 20 films). As with Midas from legend, it turned to be a huge mistake for Petra who learned herself what abuse, indifference, and humiliation meant. With just a few characters locked in the claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere of the apartment, the film is never slow or boring thanks to the young director/writer story-telling ability and to magic camera work by Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas", "The Last Temptation of Christ", and "After Hours" among others). It is hard to believe that such a gorgeous looking movie was shot for ten days only. I've read that Fassbinder was able to make so many movies in such a short period of time because they were cheaply produced - no special effects, no big action scenes, no exotic locations. This is true but his movies are most certainly not cheap - highly intelligent, thought provoking, always excellently acted and beautiful or perhaps I've been lucky and have not seen the ones that don't fit the description.

4.5/10

Mannequins and Mirrors.......2006-09-22

Fassbinder's impressive psychoanalytical exploration of oppression both sexual and emotional between the genders (told entirely with dialogue) and the oppression between the same genders is a complex affair. To counter the depth and range of emotions and conflicting feelings, Fassbinder uses a very direct and simplistic filmic approach. The film is shot almost entirely in one room and he uses a large number of medium static shots, sometimes lasting as long as five minutes without a cut - this illustrates both Fassbinder's economic working style and acts as a visual juxtaposition to the complexities on screen. The essential dilemma the characters wrestle with, is who wields the power in a relationship. Fassbinder takes the position that the one who loves and shows it, is the weaker. Wonderfully 70's with colourful costumes and an above average mise-en-scene for Fassbinder, this is an effective exploration of the moral maze and conflict with any relationship, be it between men and women or the same sex.

gut wrenching.......2005-04-28

Perhaps Fassbinder's most revolutionary film, Petra von Kant manages to combine the stunning cinematography of Michael Ballhaus with very deliberate symbolism and a brilliant script of viscious circles to create an art form at once prosaic and highly intellectual at the same time. Fassbinder brings the theatre back into film (or maybe the other way round) and, as in 'Martha', we feel so strongly connected with the main character as to feel all the pain and agony. This movie is one truly powerful cinematic experience. One gets a sense of the often chaotic and emotional life that Fassbinder himself must have had.

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