The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant: Petra Von Kant is a successful fashion designer of moderate wealth. Petra has a silent servant, Marlene, who she badly mistreats and is constantly ordering her to do the most menial tasks. Petra was once married and has a daughter at boarding school, but now has no use for men. After a long conversation with her friend, the Baroness Sidonie, concerning their views on men and the impact of male-female relationships on their independence, Sidonie introduces Petra to Karin. Petra is instantly smitten by Karin and their relationship, and the effect it has on Petra, is the basis for the rest of the film.

 

The film was taken from a stage play and takes place entirely in Petra's apartment, but never feels like it's on a stage. The set does nothing to constrain the story, on the contrary, it contributes to the feeling of imprisonment that is one of the films themes. It is a showcase of powerful, emotional performances by Margit Carstensen as Petra, Hanna Schygulla as Karin, and Irm Hermann as Marlene. Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's script delves into the nature of female relationships, sexual power, ambition, and despair.

 

Carstensen (most likely facilitated by Fassbinder's famous manipulations) gives a soul-bearing performance that is simply mesmerizing. Schygulla is the manipulator, at first shy and naive-seeming, but completely ruthless and cold when she needs to be. And Irm Hermann, does what the great silent film stars could do best; portray love, anguish, sadness, pride, and pity, all without saying a word.

 

Fassbinder rejects cinematic artifice and tricks. He and cinematographer Michael Ballhaus rely on long takes and uses very few closeups, instead allowing the all-seeing camera eye to glide around the characters and silently observe. They creatively utilize

the confined nature of the set, as in one memorable scene when a wooden beam creates a split-screen effect. In Uli Lommel's (longtime friend, actor, and PA for Fassbinder) commentary on the excellent Fantoma DVD of Fassbinder's western Whity, he quotes the head of the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Julian Lorenz, as saying "Forget all that you've heard and read about Fassbinder. If you really want to know who he was, just watch The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant."

 

The film is the most perfect encapsulation of Fassbinder's career theme - that to love was to show weakness; that the person who loved the most in a relationship, gave up all of their power and control. Another running Fassbinderean theme was class and money. Thus, Petra feels inferior to Sidonie, and superior to Marlene and Karin. She seeks to control Karin through her position and with money. But while money means a great deal in the Fassbinder universe, sex means even more, and Karin's ability to manipulate Petra with sex, desire, and love is the superior power.

 

The power pyramid and relationships of the film are often reflected using symbolism - as with the beautiful and strange positioning of the mannequins in the background or the positioning of furniture or lack thereof. And one cannot help but notice the wall size mural of Renaissance-esque nude males that often provides the film's background with below-the-waist subtext or pointing fingers.

 

At its core, the film is a riveting examination of the human need for relationships on one's own terms - relationships based on domination, subjugation, or obsession - rather than on some sort of mutual respect or shared feelings. Needs, wants, and goals may be shared, but true feelings? Feelings are to be locked away in a shell of human bitterness, escaping only in our tears.