THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM Movie Review

Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum

When a woman (Angela Winkler in a strong, memorable performance) spends the night with a young man about whom she knows virtually nothing, she discovers to her horror that her brief “association” with this man—who is suspected of being a terrorist—will change her life forever in ways she could never have imagined. With tabloid and television microphones shoved mercilessly and recklessly in her face, Katharina finds that without so much as a day in court, her honor and reputation have become nothing but memories, and her guilt is all but established by viciously judgmental press and affirmed by a scandal-hungry, gullible public. Based on a novel by Heinrich Böll, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum feels contemporary despite the quarter-century that's passed since its release; its portrait of a news-addicted society eager to eat itself alive for ratings and circulation is uncomfortably familiar. The film has the feel of a classic fable for our time, and was adapted for the screen and directed with restraint and intelligence by the husband and wife team of Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. Remade a decade later for American television as The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck, starring Mario Thomas and Kris Kristofferson.

NEXT STOP … The Tin Drum, A Free Woman, Life of Oharu

1975 (R) 97m/C GE Angela Winkler, Mario Adorf, Dieter Laser, Juergen Prochnow; D: Volker Schlondorff, Margarethe von Trotta. VHS GLV