Review of Die 120 Tage von Bottrop

"Die 120 Tage von Bottrop" or "The 120 Days of Bottrop" is a German film from 1997, so this one will have its 20th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Christoph Schlingensief and he got help with the script from Oskar Roehler, one of Germany's most successful filmmakers. The title is of course a play on words with the (in)famous "Sodom" movie, but this film we have here is also a tribute by Schlingensief to the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and this shows not only through the many actors in here who regularly worked with Fassbinder. And there are other famous actors here too that did not work with Fassbinder because they were too young back then still. I will not mention any names this time as you can check out the cast list yourself. However, it is a pretty impressive collection of names taking into account that Schlingensief's films always looked a lot like indie or underground films and they certainly were not for made for the broad masses. And like many of his other works, this Bottrop-themed film is also pretty short, stays even under the 60-minute mark. I myself like Schlingensief's approach to film and art in general, particularly because of its uniqueness, but this one here did not stay very memorable to me. I have to give it a thumbs.down.