Khanty Movie Reviews

My rating is actually 2.5 stars. I was intrigued by the synopsis of this film and then the overall production design(the single divded loft space, the central positioning of the big bed, the vibrant wall painting in almost all the shots, and of course the costuming) really drew me in. Given that the film only has five or six scenes, each scene is 20 to 25 minutes long. The majority of each scene consists Petra Von Kant rambling on about her ethics, philosophies, and tragedies. She is completely self-obsessed. While there is sympathy for her life's pain and admiration for her sense of independence, her treatment of everyone around her is either callous(Marlene), patronizing(Sidonie and her daughter), predatory(Karin), or wheedling(Karin and her mother).

Even her love for Karin, however doomed, is poisoned by her inability to see anything outside of herself. Before their affair begins, Karin tells Petra exactly who she is in terms of her goals, discipline, desires, and damaged world view. Yet Petra refuses to acknowledge the real Karin and is shocked to find herself used and cast aside by Karin.

Throughout the film, Marlene, Petra's assistant, is a silent witness to Petra's dramatic highs and lows. She toils like a machine. Maintaining a patient grace, Marlene withstands Petra's demanding viciousness and suffers the presence of the callow ..., Karin. Every once in a while, Marlene's expression reveals her abject love for Petra. Marlene's devotion to Petra is not tragic unto itself; Marlene is happy in her submissive role. It is Petra's willful ignorance of Marlene's sacrifice that is the issue.

While Petra's dissolution into a lovelorn harpy is strangely humorous, her utterly destructive will toward all of her other relationships is the ultimate realization of her selfishness. This quality, not Petra's lesbian desire, is the deviant "other" of the film.

Decadent German fashion designer, Petra Von Kant (Margit Carstensen) rules her business world from her apartment. Here she exploits silent, faithful Marlene--her assistant designer, cook, secretary, slave and general dogsbody. Marlene worships Petra and shifts seamlessly between work roles while accepting everything dished out to her. Petra is cruel, self-focused, and arrogant--her success allows her to be unpleasant to everyone.

Petra is introduced to married model, Karin (Hannah Schygulla), and Petra falls madly in love with her. Karin--who seems to be vulnerable and gentle--agrees to move in with Petra, and so their relationship begins. With a great ironic display of the absolute corruptibility and viciousness of human beings, Fassbinder then shows how love and worship weakens Petra. Karin--the love object--holds all the power in the relationship, and in a strange reversal, Petra becomes the tiresome slave.

This film has a very small all-female cast, but the huge mural of a naked man serves as the token male presence. The placement of the mural and its anatomically diminished male is no accident, and I cannot recall a film in which the set is such an integral part of the film. Note Petra's bedding, and Petra's body is just a clothed version of the naked mannequins that sprawl all over Petra's apartment in various poses. Petra seems like a mannequin, and she dons the most fantastic outfits. She begins the day looking rather haggard, but with her wigs and make-up, she becomes glamourous and seductive by noon. Hannah Schygulla as Karin looks positively dumpy next to the sharp elbows of Petra. Note Marlene's silent participation during the dialogues that take place. Marlene often shows her displeasure or anguish in the subtlest ways, and again, it's all part of the set.

"The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant" is one of my favourite Fassbinder films, and one I re-watch ever year during my annual Fassbinder Festival. I think Fassbinder's film illustrates perfectly the inherent problem of possession and power in all love relationships. In the beginning of the film, it is difficult to imagine anyone besting Petra, and it seems as though Karin may just become another victim. After all, Petra holds all the power--the money, the apartment, the influence, and the position, but the power in the relationship moves to Karin, and all she does is exploit and torture Petra under Marlene's watchful and disapproving gaze--displacedhuman

I have to admit it. I wasn't especially impressed with The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant when I first saw it several years ago. In fact, my immediate reaction was that it was an overly long, claustrophobic, remarkable ugly-looking film. But now--somehow--I appreciate these as strengths of the film. (I'll try to explain this change of heart, to the best of my ability, in a moment.) But I think it's important to note that Petra von Kant is likely a very divisive film: some people are apt to love it, extremely and emphatically, while others may believe it is among the worst that cinema has to offer. In other words, this is a very different sort of film--unconventional, provocative but at the same time accessible. It certainly isn't as "difficult" (if that's the right word) as Godard's Weekend, Bergman's Persona, or Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, but it certainly disregards some of the conventions that an audience associates with "popular entertainment."

Firstly, the film is constructed like an intimate play, with only a handful of actors, one interior setting (Petra von Kant's home), and only four or five scenes comprising the entirety of this two-hour film. The three main actresses of the film are all Fassbinder mainstays: Margit Carstensen (as the title character, a self-involved fashion designer), Hannah Schygulla (as her protegee, lover, and--later--antagonist), and Irm Herrmann (as her mysteriously silent live-in assistant). The plot, which is less significant in itself than it is as a vehicle to learn about these characters, centers on the rise and fall of the love affair between Petra von Kant and an aspiring model, to whom Petra becomes completely devoted, despite growing evidence of the latter's manipulations and callousness. This ultimately destructive relationship is mirrored by the apparently obsessive devotion the assistant offers to Petra, who repays her, customarily, either with indifference or cruelty.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Fassbinder aesthetic, Petra von Kant is maybe not the best primer, however. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun, or The Merchant of Four Seasons would seem like better introductions. The cinematography in a Fassbinder film (except perhaps in Whity and the black-and-white films) is by definition often grainy, dreary, and consciously unattractive. While this certainly may be off-putting to a connoisseur of, say, Sven Nykvist's clean and austere cinematography or the grandeur of Technicolor (which Fassbinder took a stab at in the vastly underrated Whity), the "anti-aesthetic" of his films seems oddly appropriate, given that many of his protagonists are what society calls losers, deadbeats, and misfits--and given many of the pitiable, seedy, and wildly melodramatic circumstances in which they often find themselves.

And speaking of melodrama--Petra von Kant perhaps achieves the greatest heights of melodrama (a la Fassbinder), when near the end of the film, the rejected and now extremely unstable Petra sits on the floor in an unfurnished room in her home engaging in furious drunken tirades at whoever (BESIDES her missing lover) might have the nerve to come to wish her a happy birthday. The scene is at once affecting and campy, human and outrageous, with Petra viciously rejecting everyone but the person she (apparently) can't have (i.e., possess, dominate).

So, all in all, what at first struck me as overly long, claustrophobic, and ugly seemed strangely effective and appropriate during the second viewing. The length of the scenes and the confined setting lent themselves to the intimacy and character-analysis of the film, and the gritty and dingy aesthetic seemed fitting in a film which so demonstratively points to the depths of human loneliness, desperation, and self-destructiveness. (But again, this film isn't the best match for people who expect quick-moving, plot-driven, big budget conventional movie-going fare. Although I've been fully converted, even I didn't appreciate it the first time I saw it.)