ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Stanley-Becker This movie is reputedly an autobiographical fictionalization of Fassbinder's own "menage" between himself, his lover, and his secretary. While the homosexuality is retained the gender is transformed to female.Petra von Kant, is, like Fassbinder a product of upper middle class circumstances. She is artistic and ambitious. She is a rising force in the German Fashion "couture" and the movie opens with a bibulous Petra waking up late, and behaving in a superior and demanding manner towards her submissive and obedient secretary/design assistant/maid, the long suffering Marlene. Petra's selfish and narcissistic character is thus immediately established. The viewer is left in no doubt concerning her sybaritic, pampered demanding nature.The next scene features a visit from her friend the Baroness Sidonie, whom she hasn't seen in years. The talk is focused on Petra,s failed marriage and Sidonie's curiosity about the underlying reasons for its failure. Petra claims that her husband resented her success and could not chauvinistically come to terms with her financial dominance. At no time does she refer to sexual orientation and gender preference as factors.Enter the Baroness's young and beautiful friend Karin. Immediately Petra becomes interested and seductively attracted towards her. In classic bourgeois style, she flatters and tempts the impoverished Karin with her wealth and connections {"I'll make you my model"}. Karin, a heterosexual embraces bisexuality and embarks on an affair with Petra.In the background throughout the entire movie Poussin's "Midas and Bacchus" reproduced as a backdrop against an entire wall looms symbolically over the unfolding drama.We are now moved on in time. Petra is now hopelessly infatuated with Karin, who, although she is affectionate towards Petra, her heterosexuality precludes her reciprocating. What Petra desires is a grand passion, which,like a moth being drawn to a flame is then consumed by it. The requited love that Petra insists upon, remains unsatisfied. The situation comes to a head when Karin's husband returns and Karin walks out of her relationship with Petra and rejoins him.We now have the core of this tale as Petra fragments in agonistic convulsion. A fantastic sequence of humiliation and degradation, emotionally convincing, is magnificently pulled off by Margarit Carstensen who plays Petra and also by Fassbinder's tight direction. The scene takes place on a shaggy long piled white carpet,{fashionable in the 70's} a bare room and the backdrop painting. An utterly masterful and absorbing display of emotion at the edge. Phew, what an affective scene, leaving the viewer quite exhausted. After the catharsis of all the "descent into hell", Petra recovers, seemingly cured of the "mad love", and supposedly, through the pain and suffering, she now offers her long suffering slave cum assistant, a new relationship - her freedom from servitude, and from now on a partnership of equality. This political resolution was taken by this particular viewer {that is, myself} with a pinch of salt, as I find it highly optimistic on Fassbinder's part, that Petra would so easily embrace a new personaThere is very little action in this movie but the authenticity is riveting. Sure, it's an Art Movie, stagey, with the dialogue telling most of the story, but it's a great movie nevertheless.

didi-5 'The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant' focuses on a small number of characters, all female, as we see the story of the designer who can't function in her life. Living with Marlene, her co-designer, servant/slave, a shadowy figure who sees all but never speaks, Petra wallows in selfishness and introspection, which all comes to a head when she is introduced to the equally self-centred Karin, a young beauty who is more than a match for her mentor.Shot in long scenes with close-ups, deep focus, and dominated by a large painting of classical nudes and a selection of mannequins, this film is extremely slow but involving. Petra's life and reactions are highly stylised - her main connection with her emotions through music (three songs by The Platters and The Walker Brothers are used to excellent effect) - and it is difficult to emphasise with someone so shallow.With an ambiguous ending and characters who are largely unlikeable, this film is problematic - sometimes a bit of a bore, sometimes causing questions to occur which are never answered - but it is worth a look.

kwiggins For those of you who have seen this movie and were bored to death, I can only say: You have not seen enough Fassbinder! This is one more tale of lost love but Petra could never attain true love because she is a dictator looking for victims to dominant. But, as in many a Fassbinder film, the tide turns against her when she meets Karin. Petra heartily gobbles up Karin's tale of lower-class woe and is soon a pathetic mess. This is an extremely well crafted film and each shot is thoroughly composed. Pay close attention to the positioning of Marlene, to the mannequins and, of course, the penis (symbolizing the male-dominated world of which all woman are victims). The penis even gets the spotlight over Hannah Schygulla at one point. In the Fassbinder world, we are all victims, all someone's prey, because we need love and will jump headlong into the abyss to attain it. We will humiliate and degrade ourselves. Petra becomes more and more like a mannequin as the movie unfolds symbolizing her degradation and emotional turmoil. I gave this movie a 10 because, while not Fassbinder's best, it still beats most of what Hollywood has put out in the last 30 years and many of the movies that have wound up in IMDb's top 250. Lastly, for the uninitiated and the unbelievers, Fassbinder challenges the viewer constantly to look closer and dig deeper into human relationships and whether real, true, lasting love is even attainable. He pushed the limits of what a movie is and what it can achieve, failing several times along the way. The result is some of the most thought-provoking, intense movies ever made.

Galina "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" (1972) - was the first Fassbinder's film I saw many years ago in Moscow and it had started my fascination and interest in the work of the enormously talented man who was a writer/director/producer/editor/actor for almost all his movies. "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" is a screen adaptation of the earlier Fassbinder's play and it never leaves the apartment of Petra Von Kant, an arrogant, sarcastic, and successful fashion designer who constantly mistreats and humiliates her always silent and obedient assistant Marianne (Irm Hermann, with whom Fassbinder made 24 movies). As a background for Petra's apartment, Fassbinder uses the blowup of Poussin's painting "Midas and Bacchus." The use of the mural is ironic on more than one level. Nude Bacchus stands in the center of the mural and is the only male presence in a film populated entirely with women. Petra, not unlike legendary Midas wished for herself a golden girl, young and beautiful Karin with golden hair (Hanna Schygulla, another Fassbinder's muse with whom he made over 20 films). As with Midas from legend, it turned to be a huge mistake for Petra who learned herself what abuse, indifference, and humiliation meant. With just a few characters locked in the claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere of the apartment, the film is never slow or boring thanks to the young director/writer story-telling ability and to magic camera work by Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas", "The Last Temptation of Christ", and "After Hours" among others). It is hard to believe that such a gorgeous looking movie was shot for ten days only. I've read that Fassbinder was able to make so many movies in such a short period of time because they were cheaply produced - no special effects, no big action scenes, no exotic locations. This is true but his movies are most certainly not cheap - highly intelligent, thought provoking, always excellently acted and beautiful or perhaps I've been lucky and have not seen the ones that don't fit the description.9.5/10