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the audience applauded

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Husband-and-wife team Schlöndorff (his sixth feature) and von Trotta (her first feature) bring Heinrich Böll's sensational novel to the big screen, THE LOST HONOR OF KATHARINA BLUM is everything one may imagine from a political reportage made in West Germany during the 70s: following the guidance of a forensic eye, a steely heroine (masked by her innocent or accomplice opaqueness and her political slant) comes under harsh interrogation by the sloppy police force, who majestically fails to seize their suspect in the first place; unscrupulous reporters harass those related or involved like a callous fly, cook up stories to manipulate the reaction from the populace, thus to ensure that more papers are sold; more private matters will surface, some big name is enmeshed, some insider deal needs to be organised, whilst, Katharine Blum (Wrinkler), our protagonist, retreats to be a cog in the machine.But, at the end of the day, what happens is simply a love-at-first-sight romance between two strangers, although it doesn't sound so credible in the soil of German, but there is absolutely no political agenda involved, the only bug is, the target Ludwig (Prochnow) is a wanted anarchist, and in this case, the subsequent occurrence will destroy Katharina's tranquil life, eventually turns her into an avenging angel with blood in her hands, but at that point, we will emotionally stand by her as her vindictive resolution engages as the only satisfactory compensation (not just for her, but for viewers too) against a grim, unfair and repressive society where morality and humanity have lost their grounds to political alienation and media obsession.Both law enforcement and paper media, and their symbiosis are under scrutiny, although the ignoble journalist Werner Tötges (Laser) takes the brunt of reproach here, but the scene where he visits Katharina's dying mother in the hospital inconveniently imposes as a stretch of its own manipulative story-telling from the director-duo (since he has no qualms about publishing a truth- twisted report, there is really no need for him to torture a dying woman like that, the purpose of that scene is too obvious); Inspector Beizmenne (Adorf) and DA (Becker) aren't exactly chummy characters to hang out with, they represent a different sort of violence and cruelty, which viciously menaces to strip Katharina of her privacy using their black-face/white-face strategy, whenever they find something needs an explanation, whether or not it is relevant to Ludwig, whom she knows only for one night. A third party to be condemned (if only in a minor gesture) is Katharina's employer, the middle-class lawyer Hubert (Bennent), Katharina works for him as a housekeeper, and one of his client, the "mysterious gentleman" Alois (Vosgerau), whom Katharina has been seeing over several years but refuses to reveal to the police under any kind of questioning. They have self-serving reasons to play safe in the game which are understandable, it is their brazen desperation and self-obsessed consideration that is too sickening to stomach.The film refrains from being a more captivating thriller with its sparing usage of action pieces, the big arrest in the end hasn't been portrayed directly, so as to leave all the leverage to Katharina's final revenge scene, which doesn't disappoint, and Angela Winkler proves that she is such a powerhouse of stamina despite of her vulnerable first impression, gradually she grows on you with her slow disintegration during all the grilling and slander from media and public, but she never loses her core of strength, an excellent exemplar of a slow-burner in the German acting school.The epilogue scenes are another slap-in-the-face of the hypocrisy of the modern journalism, as clear as day, Tötges is killed not because he is a journalist, but an unethical bastard. Unnervingly, one has no trouble tracing the film's continuing relevance in today's world, which in fact, gives its sustaining life force of this 40-year-old curio.

The film starts out on a ferry carrying a man who's being filmed by another. Katharina meets a man at a Carnival party. The two hit it off and go back to her place. The next morning, the police break down her door. Apparently the man was some kind of criminal. This man gave the police the slip somehow and the police are now accusing of abetting him. It becomes a media frenzy and the media comes down especially hard on her. It's a real circus and Katharina's life is turned upside down as well as that of her dying mother. There's one reporter who was particularly oppressive and, in the final scene, is shot by Katharina.A lot of the specifics aren't particularly clear, but that seems on purpose. It's not clear what sort of criminal Ludwig Götten (Jürgen Prochnow) is except for a widely sought one. It's also not clear if Katharina was lying the entire time and actually helped Ludwig or not. In the end she's very quick to get back with him and call him on the telephone. This seems very contrary to someone ignorant of the man's criminal past. I really like how the police and media are portrayed. I hear a lot of talk about how police are necessary, but they are those who walk around with a gun putting out harsh questions and being general jerks. This film does a good job showing of what they do - how many times the innocent are convicted etc. It's also great that the media is shown how they are. The obvious bias shown by media in their decision to cover certain events over another, and the intrusive and aggressive nature of the tabloids is shown well. Undoubtedly, this isn't a true story, but it is based on the novel by Heinrich Böll who had experience with such things himself. It's easy to forget sometimes that film is a part of life and it's important to show the modern world as it is while still telling a story - which this does. This is a high recommend to any fan of German cinema.

Schlöndorff's first film (that I know of) is 1966 adaptation of the short DIE VERWIRRUNGEN DES JUNGEN TÖRLESS, a short novel by the great and under-appreciated Viennese writer Robert Musil (author of THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES). My point is that it is clear that Schlöndorff is a very enlightened director, aware of the great modern literary tradition that came before him. We may be reminded of Joseph K. in Kafka's THE TRIAL, who wakes up "one fine morning" with the police in his room and is under arrest "without having done anything wrong." We also should find similarities between the methods the police in this film use to prosecute Katharina Blum and the way the prosecutors slander Camus' hero Meursault in THE STRANGER. This film is highly recommended for those interested in the legacy of German history. There are subtle references to the Nazi period in this film that students in German Studies should pick up on. Overall, this film is very respectful of the intellectual tradition that precedes it, but it gets a 9 for not "infecting" the viewer (in the Tolstoyan sense).

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.