The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely dreadful!!
Review: Art-house praise aside, this is by far the most painfully dull movie I have ever slogged through. The characters are incredibly irritating, especially the title character, a pathetic weirdo who is brought to her knees by the rejection of her manipulative, lesbian-when-she-wants-to-be lover. It is one of those films that one always thinks has to get better, considering all of the praise heaped on it. It starts out bad and gets worse with each passing moment, until one finally begins to wonder if it will ever end. If you want to watch a good foreign film with lesbianism in it, get Antonia's Line. It's delightful, and enjoyable for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: classic claustrophobic old world feminism
Review: As other articulate(aussprechen) reviewers so graciously describe in fantastische means here Fassbinder really had it in the Old Days. Too bad he Burned Himself Out before the the last cigarette was snuffed or gallon of bourbon or swelling of his(anwachsend) puffing face receeded. As he lived his life taking extraordinary chances so did his creativity,his films, actually theatre with a lens,as The Bitter Tears here attests. One great shot, stilled, One Stage,Petra's old modernist studio, this forces concentration of this emotional feminist abbatoir, well Petra, who strikes one as a de Beauvoirian Feminist wanting simply the Man's world of privilege,power, market success and recognition. There is a wonderful subtexts here as well of Hegel's 'Master and Servant', from the 'Phenomenology of the Spirit', a work Hegel intended more for its pedagogical value, Petra treats her servant, (who is a speechless role, another working class metaphor Marx would have loved) like schiessen, smutz und Dreck."Another bourbon,(Petra shouts in hysteria) now", " keep typing, keep sketching, it is important. . .""Change my plane ticket" Yet she goes on, her life goes on with her obsessions for Karin,the hefty, "bleckadicta"(damaged) Hanna Schygulla,who simply betrays her(Petra) all along the route here.Not Good Sisterhood a 'Die Walkure', were no better they betrayed Brunnhilde as well, but that's Wagner's feminism. Fassbinder would have had more to think about had Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray had developed their impressive theories on feminine sexuality contra Lacan at the early Seventies.Karin at times fabricates her Other world, Petra wanted to know "Where were you last night, you didn't come home?", "I slept with a Black Man who had a Big Black Dicc". Petra is shattered for she beleives this tall tale.

Virtuoso performances here, a depth of dialogic as Bahktin might say in that depth of focused theatre we really don't see again in Fassbinder, not even the mountainous Berlin Alexanderplatz, where the drama, the emotive dimensions get diluted with its oceanic lengths. Again Rainer taking chances,simply getting more from surfaces than theatrical depth, what happened to Brecht and Freud combined, and paying the price. Adorno said someplace, art must pay a price for itself, for its own integrity, so it can enter the real world.
Margit Carstensen as Petra sort of reinvents herself as the work progresses, changing wigs,Cleopatra-like dress into her own line of fashion I presume. The tune "Smoke gets in your eyes" was a great choice here in the opening moments, transformative sickly nostalgia, Petra remembering her own rotten life. She seems to hate everything and everyone including at the conclusion here her mother, girlfriends all wishing her Happy Birthday! also her oefish daughter clad in bland school uniform. But no one seems to understand Petra(except her servant,which proves Hegel Marx) all she wants is Karin, the intimacy of this love. Yes that's reasonable, and the world didn't give in to it, at least not in the early Seventies.Petra mother was shocked. Perhaps in retrospect we find Petra's obsessions quite commonplace,but back then(and I assume here the film is partial autobiographical for Fassbinder,in the number of boyfriends that had betrayed him.)
We tend to listen to everyone in this work,Don't know if Rainer knew of the sparce dramatic encrustations of Sam Beckett) everyone is heard, no matter how obsessed mundane,how ill-focused,and boring one's life, and its daily minutae(Mine u sha)we still listen. Rainer Werner compells us to. He was a virtuoso.

Rating:
Summary: Lesbo-a-Go-Go, Fassbinder Style!
Review: Boy, oh, boy! The crankiest lesbians you'd ever want to see just talking and fighting, talking and drinking, talking and dancing to the Platters! I can't think of a better way to spend two hours. This one's amazing. Perhaps the ultimate Fassbinder: excruciating for many, sheer heaven for a lucky few. When brittle but oh-so-vulnerable Petra, wearing her bizarre Wagneresque 'gown' with the glittery pretzel-shaped decolletage, puts "In My Room" on the phonograph and starts bitching to gorgeous, scheming Karin about her first marriage, it'll send you into the stratosphere. Kinky, trashily hilarious, profound and political -- what more could you possibly want in a movie?

Rating:
Summary: Fassbinder's take on a Mankiewicz classic, All About Eve
Review: Considerable journalism and scholarship has been devoted to Fassbinder's admiration for works of Danish-born film director Douglas Sirk. However Fassbinder did, in fact, loosely borrow from many melodramatic texts, Mildred Pierce for The Marriage of Maria Braun, Sunset Blvd. for Veronica Voss, both in the BRD Trilogy, and in the case of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, from Joseph's Mankiewicz's All About Eve.

In the audio commentary, popular arts critic Jane Shattuc makes reference to Fassbinder's theatrical renderings in the film, Petra's couture costumes, tightly framed background shots of the Poussin painting in Petra's apartment, and use of lighting, all of which provide the viewers with every bit of intimacy as a performance on stage.

Obviously his own background and training in theater was one source of inspiration for the film. But certainly another was his fascination with Hollywood melodrama, and specifically in this instance, Joseph Mankiewicz's characteriztion of Broadway legend Margo Channing and her idol Eve Harrington in All About Eve.

While same class consciousness dyanamics are evident in both films, so are elements of lesbianism and bi-sexuality. Only in the case of Fassbinder the class differences between Petra, her appentice, and the Hanna Schgulla character become stark and more exaggerated. As for sexual oreintation, what's implied in All About Eve is more evident in Petra von Kant and worthy of a enough consideration to do a doctorial dissertation on the subject.

i love this film because it provides the most vivid and detailed characterizations of female intentions, wants, and desires of any other film in the Fassbinder canon, including the female characters in the BRD Trilogy or Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Rating:
Summary: "I can no longer go back and start again."
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant
Review: I don't know if it was bad acting or simply a bad script. The acting was stiff. Maybe something was lost in the translation. But it seemed they took a 10 min dialogue and stretched it to 2 hours. Basic story left me saying get over it, get on with it. I fast forewarded through most of it and didn't miss anything. If you're a lesbian looking for a movie with strong female interaction, it's not this one. This movie, definitely was not worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: A minimalistic melodrama? But it works...
Review: 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.)

Rating:
Summary: A minimalistic melodrama? But it works...
Review: I'll admit that watching any foreign film is enhanced by knowing the spoken language, in this case, German. The film depicts what is essentially a one-room, two-scene play, in which fashion designer Petra von Kant interacts with first with her "help" (the speechless Marlene), an old friend (Sidonie), and the young and beautiful Karin (Scene 1). Then, abandoned by Karin, and having already completely rejected men for their weaknesses and bestiality, Petra is left to confront her mother, daughter, and finally her abandonment by Marlene (Scene 2).

This film depicts the fragility of the interdependece of each on the other, even in a world in which men are villified (Petra) or merely used (Sidonie and Karin). The silent Marlene appears to emerge as the victor, as she packs one bag, thoughfully dropping a pistol in it among her other limited posessions, since it is she who apparently does most of Petra's designs (and voluminous writing on a non-electric typewriter).

The meaning of the cats on the stairway to Petra's bedroom/living-room/workroom during the initial credits remains a mystery to this viewer. I suspect each individual viewer will find some allegory to his or her own compromises in life throughout the film...

Rating:
Summary: Bitter Life Among Women: An Allegory
Review: I'll admit that watching any foreign film is enhanced by knowing the spoken language, in this case, German. The film depicts what is essentially a one-room, two-scene play, in which fashion designer Petra von Kant interacts with first with her "help" (the speechless Marlene), an old friend (Sidonie), and the young and beautiful Karin (Scene 1). Then, abandoned by Karin, and having already completely rejected men for their weaknesses and bestiality, Petra is left to confront her mother, daughter, and finally her abandonment by Marlene (Scene 2).

This film depicts the fragility of the interdependece of each on the other, even in a world in which men are villified (Petra) or merely used (Sidonie and Karin). The silent Marlene appears to emerge as the victor, as she packs one bag, thoughfully dropping a pistol in it among her other limited posessions, since it is she who apparently does most of Petra's designs (and voluminous writing on a non-electric typewriter).

The meaning of the cats on the stairway to Petra's bedroom/living-room/workroom during the initial credits remains a mystery to this viewer. I suspect each individual viewer will find some allegory to his or her own compromises in life throughout the film...

Rating:
Summary: Interesting...yes
Review: 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. --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition