L'Honneur perdu de Katharina Blum

Apart from its general and still (i.e. now more than ever) valid attacks on the scrupelous tactics of tabloid journalism, this movie is also very valuable as a time piece about German society in the 1970's, when the country was shaken by fear of terrorist assassinations and everything considered anti-Democratic (meaning left-wing). In this way, the film not only takes into question the missing morality of tabloid journalists, but also the loss of human rights in a society bothered with questions of homeland security (parallels to the current situation in the U.S. are obvious). Katharina Blum is not only destroyed by the merciless press abusing her for sensationalist journalism, but also by a police and judicial system that doesn't value an individual's right of privacy anymore, and even less the principle of innocent until proven otherwise.

A film of exceptional quality (even though the acting isn't convincing at some times), "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum" is strongly recommended to every thinking movie fan with an interest in the abuse of power in our not-so-democratic society.

This film is as prescient about the abuses of the so-called liberal media, as another film made the same year: NETWORK. Though the political agendas of the two films run somewhat different tracks, they arrive at the same station. One's private life, passions and convictions are reduced to fodder for the lowest common denominator of the semi-literate whenever it suits the status quo's purpose.

If you're about to see "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" for the first time, attempt to avoid thinking of it as an old film; As with Network, the passing decades have proved it more a documentary.

It's funny, but the recent Criterion DVD release of "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" gives it a whole new perspective. Next to "The Legend of Rita", "Lost Honor" is almost like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". But in this case, it's dead serious.

Katharina Blum is a normal German woman who has a one-night state with a man she meets at a party. Later, she finds out that he is an anarchist and part of a Baader-Meinhoff-type gang; the group Rita from "Legend of Rita" is supposed to be a member of.

Responding to the activities of German urban guerrillas, there is a national dragnet to hunt them down. Blum is arrested and gets caught up in the hunt, revealing a myopic government at it's most abusive. Equally revealing is the insidious nature of the media and it's role in repression. You can't help but get a chill watching it not because you can't believe it ever happened. But because you can't believe it happens all the time. Life in America is a lot like Katharina Blum's for many people.

Schlöndorff is an intellectual. Both of these films are great reflections of that. They're smart, challenging while being well paced and lithe. "Lost Honor" marked the directorial debut of Margarethe Von Trotta (in some ways a protégé of Schlöndorff's not to mention lover) who would go on to great things including "Rosa Luxembourg".

Angela Winkler isn't much of anything, but when she has a brief affair with a man who turns out to be a terrorist, the police investigate her, and the press crucifies her.

Distrust of news organizations is not a phenomenon that arose in the 21st century; 'gutter press' is recorded as of 1845, and 'yellow journalism' in 1881. This collaboration between Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta from the novel by Heinrich Boll is an outright polemic, almost as savage as the attack on Miss Winkler's character. It's hard to qualify it, since the entire situation creeps up on the audience, just as it does on Miss Winkler. One day she's going to discotechs and dancing to 'Spanish Flea', the next the police are talking to her calmly, and a few days later, her name is all over the papers.

In a society where 'news' has become some sort of addictive drug that stresses out anyone who looks at it, and maddens anyone who doesn't -- and no, I haven't looked at the election results, and don't tell me -- here's a movie as bitterly prophetic as NETWORK.

I read before the novel I saw the film (in my german class) and I have to say this adaption is way better than the book. The book by Heinrich Böll is not easy to read, it's actually very boring and sometimes you just want to throw it at the wall because Böll often just philosophies about some unimportant things. The film concentrates on the "real" story of Katharina Blum and creates an intense portrait of a young woman who becomes a victim of the tabloid press. It's really good and Angela Winkler gives us a superb performance. 7/10.