"Die Patriotin" or "The Patriotic Woman" is a West German German-language movie from 1979, so it is already over 35 years old. It runs for approximately 2 hours and the director is Alexander Kluge, also one of the writers here. If you know Kluge and his films a but, you will also know that his material is very bleak, very fact-based and usually very sterile. This description also fits these 120 minutes we have here. He is definitely not for everybody and I have to include myself there as well. His approach does very little for me usually. As always with him, this film feels like a documentary a lot of the time. Then it switches to the fictitious story of a teacher who ignores her syllabus, what she is told to teach in terms of the contents, to teach their pupils/students other material instead. And of course, this has a big impact on how everybody sees her. The main character is played by German actress Hanneloge Hoger and here we have one of her most known performances, especially when looking at her earlier years. The film has black-and-white segments as well as color sequences. One of the core plot story lines is about the central character's intention to make history again, not really to talk about it, but to make it. Overall, there was very little I liked about the film here. I guess the music was kinda nice, but I was not really impressed with any of the performances or the script, which dragged a whole lot and I would have preferred a shorter film for sure, more essential and without all the forgettable moments. Strangely enough, this one received a German film Award for "Outstanding Non-Feature Film", which is very bizarre as it is a full feature film of course. Even if it is a documentary, and you can make a point for that at times, it is still a full feature film. Anyway, this movie should not be receiving any awards in general. This did not get me interested in Kluge's work. The contrary is true actually, it got me even less interested. Thumbs-down from me. Don't watch.
2 Reviews
As sterile as always with Kluge, fact-based yet never makes a difference
Horst_In_Translation5 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Not for fun.....
twbass13 February 2008
As a Film Studies post-graduate student, I have just had to endure Kluge's The Patriot. Teachers of film will tell you that this is a good film. There may be others out there who perhaps hold this film in high regard.... but alas, I am not one of them. I would like to give a detailed account of what the film is actually about, explaining the highs and lows of this German spectacle, but I cannot. After its two hour running time I was at a loss...and still am. It is a jumbled mess of documentary and fiction which involves a confused and disillusioned German history teacher and a talking knee......I will repeat that, a talking knee. Anything profound and informative that the film attempts to convey is lost due to the simple reason that it is so mind numbingly boring that you will be thinking about your dinner before you start questioning the subject of German history. The boredom is then accompanied by confusion. If you are still with the film after a bizarre peeping-tom incident then well done. If you are actually on board when the film presents a still shot of a woman inside a cow, then I salute you....but most of us normal folk will be lost. You leave the film scratching your head, wondering where the last two hours of your life have gone.
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