Latvia, 1919: the end of the Russian Civil War. An aristocratic young woman (brilliantly played by Margarethe von Trotta) becomes involved with a sexually repressed Prussian soldier. When she is rejected by her love, the young woman is sent into a downward spiral of psychosexual depression, promiscuity, and revolutionary collaboration. A startling tale of heartbreak and violence set against the backdrop of bloody revolution, Volker Schlondorff’s Coup de grâce is a powerful film that explores the interrelation of private passion and political commitment. —The Criterion Collection
Volker Schlöndorff (born 31 March 1939 in Wiesbaden, Germany) is a Berlin-based German filmmaker.
He won an Oscar as well as the Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival for The Tin Drum (1979), the film version of the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass.
Schlöndorff has adapted many literary works for his movies, including some critically well-received US productions, but he is also engaged in post-war German politics. He served as the chief executive for the UFA studio in Babelsberg. Volker Schlöndorff also teaches film and literature at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts an Intensive Summer Seminar.
He was married to fellow film director Margarethe von Trotta from 1971 to 1991. —Wikipedia
the score in the beginning set this up to be an ill-fated fairy tale. Or nightmare, depending on what angle you are looking at New German Cinema from....
The Special will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of Positif and the 50th of the Oberhausen Manifesto.
A Kratovice castle serves as a recluse stronghold for varying factions of the ongoing cilvil war in the Baltic regions of 1919 Latvia. Screenwriter and spouse of director, Margarethe von Trotta plays… read review
