Der Fangschuß

It's about 1920 somewhere on the Baltic Coast. The remnants of the German aristocracy are holding out, and aristocratic Margarethe von Trotta is the sister of a White Russian officer and in love with another, Matthias Habich, but does nothing about it. She's also sympathetic with the local communists.

Volker Schlöndorff's movie is about, like so many of his movies, man's inhumanity to man, with a thin veneer of civilization covering a seething mass of selfish inhumanity, until the madness of it all overwhelms the protagonist. Everyone seems quite rational, holding conversations that never quite make sense or lead to any conclusion. His frequent collaborator, cinematographer Igor Luther, offers beautiful interior shots, but his exteriors seem disorganized and uncomplimentary.... probably a commentary on the world the movies' characters live in.

In a depopulated part of northeastern Europe, desperate men are fighting a hopeless, pointless war after the Great War has ended. It is the winter of 1919-1920 in Latvia, and the Treaty of Versailles will soon establish the independence of the Baltic states. Schlondorff has taken Yourcenar's novel and made a wonderful mood piece out of it. The acting is great: Matthias Habich is stiff and uncomprehending, Margarethe von Trotta is warm and lively as well as passionately Bolshevik, Valeska Gert, whom I remember from a Louise Brooks silent film, is the half-crazy aunt.

Schlondorff's films are tremendous literary adaptations that stand on their own as film creations. I see the world a little through his eyes, just as I see it through Renoir's, or Bertolucci's, or Altman's.

Grim, austere black-and-white war drama, set in the Baltic lands in 1919, where the Germans are clashing with the Soviets. The director, Volker Schlöndorff, cites Jean-Pierre Melville as his main influence in the opening credits; I haven't seen anything by Melville yet, but I did spot some traces of Ingmar Bergman. The film has a strong sense of time and place, compelling performances by co-screenwriter (and future director) Margarethe von Trotta and Matthias Habich, and a hauntingly (if inevitably) downbeat ending, but it is burdened by a meandering script; when the Big Secret at the heart of it all is revealed, it doesn't really seem worth the effort. Overall, worth seeing, especially for its unusual time-space setting. **1/2 out of 4.

Volker Schlöndorff is one of the most overrated directors of the New German Cinema school, and that shows in some of his most celebrated films, including THE TIN DRUM. His adaptions of literature seldom reach beyond mere illustration and even so Schlöndorff never seems to know what the point of his stories actually is.

DER FANGSCHUSS/COUP DE GRACE is one of his more watchable works, which might be largely due the fine, atmospheric B/W photography. But compared to Margarete Yourcenar's novel Schlöndorff's inability to adopt a proper point of view becomes apparent. The novel is told in first person by the main character Erich von Lhomond; yet in Schlöndorff's version it is never clear if it his or Sophie's story. The erotic obsession Sophie has for Erich, mixed with political adversity, which is so crucial for the story is almost completely missing in the film. It is rather supposed than being actually shown and acted out. Unless you have not read the book you cannot measure Schlöndorff's failure to convey what's actually going on between these two.

The greatest flaw is the miscasting of the director's wife Margarethe von Trotta, who is not only a mediocre actress but who is visibly at least 15 years too old for her character, leaving it pointless and unbelievable. Trotta sucks so badly in her part that it makes the whole film a pain to watch every time she appears on screen.

One of the few truly enjoyable moments is the final screen appearance of legendary actress and Pabst veteran Valeska Gert (THE JOYLESS STREET) in an eccentric supporting part - even though her black dyed hair, heavy make-up and curious antics make her hardly a convincing Baltic German landowner lady of the early 20th century.

DER FANGSCHUSS is a pretentious misunderstanding, like most of Schlöndorff's work.

...and then only in regard to the atrocious VHS presentation of this film. It's a good thing I understand a fair amount of German and of French, for fully 2/3 of the subtitles are illegible, and the dialog is presented about 50-50 in those two languages. Why on earth did they use white lettering for subtitles--when this film takes place in winter, with snow all about? For that matter, why do they ever use white subtitles at all? It has always been possible to use either white characters bordered by black, or vice-versa, rendering subtitles legible against any background. This technical incompetence is inexcusable and an insult to a very fine film.

I was completely caught off guard, not having read Ms. Yourcenar's novel, by the plot twist near the end. Let me warn you: there is not one bright spot in this whole movie, nor should there be, set as it is in the most horrific, chaotic days of World War I. It is gripping, the character development is splendid, the characters are three-dimensional and complex, and the plot presents enough moral and ethical dilemmas to occupy a thinking person's idle moments for months.

Acting is uniformly excellent to superb--and the character of the aunt is one that may haunt your dreams, or nightmares, forever after.

I voted an eight and am not sure this film doesn't deserve a ten.