Renate Grosser Movies
- 1991
In this drama, a dauntless woman manages to give birth to two daughters as bombs drop all around her in World War II. She survives with them to rebuild Munich from the ashes and does the same with her own life. This feel-good feature was popular in Germany and featured many speeches in a countrified Bavarian dialect which is nearly incomprehensible even to native speakers. The title Rama Dama is a variation on a local postwar slogan which conveys a brisk "let's get going" sentiment. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Vávrová, Werner Stocker, (more)
- 1988
In 1984, Anna Wimschneider, a woman who had been a farmgirl in Bavaria during World War Two published an autobiography which focused on her life during that period, and it became a huge bestseller. Her story, Herbstmilch, is brought to the screen by her fellow Bavarian, director Joseph Vilsmaier. At the beginning of the story, Anna (Dana Vavrova) is the oldest daughter of a widowed farmer, and toils ceaselessly looking after her father and her many younger brothers. She abandons her dream of becoming a nurse when she falls in love with and marries her neighbor, Albert (Werner Stucker), who is also a farmer. Before she can get too used to things, her new husband is drafted, and she is left as the only completely able-bodied person on the farm, and must support not only her hostile mother-in-law, but a whole host of new aunts and uncles. Enduring even more incredible and backbreaking labor on this primitive farm than on her father's farm, and pregnant, somehow she survives. Both Anna and her beloved Albert appear in significant cameos in this film. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dana Vávrová, Werner Stocker, (more)
The Serpent's Egg, or Das Schlangenei is director Ingmar Bergman's second English language production (The Touch was his first). It is, however, his first completely non-Swedish production, made after his voluntary self-exile from Sweden over taxation issues. Set in Berlin in the early 1920s, it explores the fear and despair the city evokes in Manuela and Abel Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann and David Carradine), two Jewish trapeze artists. The suicide of Manuela's husband (Abel's brother), has stranded them in Berlin. Berlin is shown to already possess the sinister elements of cruelty and anti-Semitism which laid the groundwork for the later Nazi takeover. A series of misadventures gets them sent to a medical clinic for treatment. However, the clinic is actually a site for Nazi-type "racial" experiments on humans, which generally either madden or kill the subjects. Das Schlangenei was savaged by the critics for its improbable-seeming story and more particularly, for casting David Carradine (best known for his earlier appearances in the Kung Fu U.S. television series) in a crucial role. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Liv Ullmann, David Carradine, (more)
This dark horror film from director Ulli Lommel was based on the real-life crimes of Fritz Haarman (Kurt Raab), the so-called "Vampire of Dusseldorf" who murdered over 25 young boys, drank their blood, and sold their flesh as black-market meat. Several German films had depicted Haarman's murderous exploits, most notably Fritz Lang's classic M (1931), but Lommel's version is far more graphic and horrifying. Produced by filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who also appears, the film revels in pseudo-Expressionistic imagery which sears itself into the viewer's mind. Raab's performance is reminiscent of both Peter Lorre in M and Max Schreck in the vampire classic Nosferatu (1922), but is unforgettable in its own right. A deeply disturbing cinematic poem about the face of true evil, this overlooked classic has developed a cult following, but is not recommended for sensitive viewers. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1967
Former Luchiano Visconti assistant Roger Fritz directs this low-budget story about lascivious Lolitas in various stages of nudity. Graphic bedroom scenes depict the coming-of-age experiences of the teenager called Junior (Juergen Jung). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Helga Anders, Helmut Lange, (more)
