Reviews

The movie does not contain a lot of special effects. It more a drama than a sci-fi flick. But the scenario such as the one decribed in the movie is getting more likely every day. Think of today's antibiotics-resistant bacteria, clearly a related problem.

To the other reviewer from 2003: There is a German WIkipedia page about this movie "Zucker - Eine wirklich süße Katastrophe" (Sugar - a really sweet catastrophe. ) There you will find more information. For instance, a novel has been released in Germany, written by the dircector of the movie, Rainer Erler.

The filmmaker has been granted access to the "inner circle" (for no apparent reason), and Richer, his coworkers, employees, his wife etc talk to her quite casually, almost as a friend. But she does not take full advantage of this opportunity. There are no intelligent conversations, only friendly conversations. That is not enough.

It is okay that Richter does not want to talk too much about personal matters, and does not really open his bag of tricks as a painter (in front of a running camera). Being filmed at work prevents creative powers being set free, many artists say (e.g. I remember Horst Janssen saying this to a film-team). Sometimes Richter seems to expect more of the conversation but quickly realizes that no-one around him has anything valuable to say about his art. Seems to happen all the time, so he does not care. He is not a diva, but quite down to earth.

It is honorable that the writer/director does not want to lecture the user, this also means almost nothing gets treated with sufficient depth.

I suspect the writer does not know enough about art (despite a lot of research and effort that she undoubtedly put into this documentary), and so has no intelligent questions to ask when it matters. Even when the conversation does not revolve around art, but instead abound family (for instance) the dialog is a but more fluent, but still, it stays quite boring.

Sometimes the filmmaker throws in some snippets from vintage documentaries from the 60s which are a bit more inquisitive, but they seem misplaced and thus are not really helpful either.

There are only subtitles shown very briefly. The music is minimalist modern classical (piano solo, or strings).

If you praised Richters greatness as a painter to someone who does not know anything about him, and you showed her this movie before you showed her any paintings of his, she'd never believe that this is one of the greatest painters of our time.

Two days ago I have seen this movie. Lead actor Karlheinz Boehm and famous filmmaker Volker Schloendorff were present in the audience, and then discussed it after the screening. This was part of (or spontaneously turned into) a fund-raising effort for the humanitarian organization that K.H. Boehm founded.

Boehm said that Fassbinder was an expert or at least naturally gifted in judging people. In the discussion it was also mentioned that in his theater group at that time he had also built a network of dependencies. Boehm was very impressed by a quote from Fassbinder, saying approximately: In general you have to exaggerate something to unleash the full power and achieve maximum artistic effect, however it is important to do it correctly (do not exaggerate too much). Here this principle has been applied to demonstrate the (one-sided) struggle for power and dominance in a marriage. At the beginning the husband is very male, that is outspoken, direct, almost blunt. Martha seems to be in love for quite a while. Later, the requests of the dominant, violent husband become increasingly over the top, so that watching the sadist makes you feel uneasy. The same holds for Marthas friends and relatives which are unable to help or, with the exception of Herr Kaiser, even realize the truth about Marthas personality being gradually ruined. This is criticism of an emotionally degraded society.

However, from a aesthetic standpoint, camera and light are marvelous. The set locations (typical for wealthy people) have also been carefully selected and are amazing in their false, pompous colorfulness. In places, there is also quite a bit of black humor mixed in, and at the beginning it seemed like a mystery story (the black guy chasing Martha)or a love story.

Aside from that , the movie also reminded me of a 1950s Bergman marriage movie. Worth seeing.

After being released from prison, young Franz has to find his place in society, and police keeps an eye on him. First he briefly tries to live with his former girl friend who still loves him a bit too passionately, however he also picks up other acquaintances. Society is hostile to him, or at least perceived by him as being so, hence it is tough to make money. But he definitely wants to keep a cool lifestyle so he must keep on law-breaking, in particular when he is with his old betraying friends.