THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT Movie Review

Die Bitteren Traenen der Petra von Kant

Writing about Rainer Werner Fassbinder in The Village Voice when The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant debuted at the 1973 New York Film Festival, Molly Haskell should have received the Accuracy in Media terseness prize for describing the film as “a tragicomic love story disguised as a lesbian slumber party in high-camp drag.” And they said Fassbinder wasn't high-concept. Bitter Tears was the picture that won me over to Fassbinder, and despite Haskell's on-target summary, there's really no description of any of his melodramatic plots that could begin to suggest the nearly maniacal, single-minded sincerity with which he filmed his tales of doomed love, hopeless lust, and unrelenting, comically overwhelming angst. The word “stylized” seems inadequate to suggest the colors and shifting images of this three-character chamber-piece, the story of celebrated fashion designer Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen), her fawning secretary/sex slave Marlene (Irm Hermann), and the exquisite, unattainable Karen (Hanna Schygulla),the young, bisexual model who Petra dreams of being enslaved by. With music by Giuseppe Verdi, the Walker Brothers, and the Platters, and glistening images by Michael Ballhaus (later of Goodfellas, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Air Force One), this remains one of Fassbinder's most absurd, sinewy, irresistible spectacles.

NEXT STOP … The Merchant of Four Seasons, Fox and His Friends, There's Always Tomorrow

1972 124m/C GE Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Irm Hermann, Eva Mattes; D: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; W: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; C: Michael Ballhaus. VHS NYF, FCT