Peter Fitz Movies
An elusive hit-man whose targets never see him coming and who always manages to disappear without a trace is forced to risk it all after falling for a mysterious woman in director Mennan Yapo's dark crime thriller. Viktor (Jaochim Król) is a stealthy killing machine with a reputation for consummate professionalism. A chance meeting with a beautiful blonde (Nadja Uhl), however, buts more than Viktor's career at stake when the police lock onto the trail of the killer and the only way to escape the long arm of the law is to execute the most daring plan imaginable. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joachim Krol, Nadja Uhl, (more)
Bela Tarr follows up on his seven-hour epic Satantango, considered by some critics as one of the finest films of the 1990s, with this elegant, haunting work about the cycles of violence that have dogged Eastern European history. Jancos (Lars Rudolph) is a wide-eyed innocent who works as an occasional postal worker and as a caretaker for Mr. Ezster (Peter Fitz). An outsider and a visionary, he marvels at the miracles of creation, from the planets rotating in the heavens to the sundry animals on earth. One day, a circus featuring jars full of medical anomalies and a massive dead whale entombed in a corrugated metal trailer visits Jancos' economically depressed village. Another more sinister attraction is a shadowy figure dubbed "The Prince," whose nihilist rants incite the town's disaffected to riot. Not long afterwards, Mrs. Ezster (Hanna Schygulla) cajoles her estranged husband to join a citizen's action group against the circus, threatening to move back into his house if he doesn't play along. Tension in the town builds until, after one of The Prince's hate-filled speeches, throngs of angry men with blunt instruments ransack and brutalize a men's hospital ward. When the dust clears, lives are irrevocably changed. This film was screened at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, (more)
- 1995
- R
A lover, an ultimatum, a phone call, and a gun: these elements are found in each segment of Hal Hartley's Flirt, an experimental comedy-drama that essentially repeats the same story three times. But while the basic narrative remains the same -- a congenital flirt must decide whether or not to commit to a current lover, who otherwise will marry someone else -- the details differ greatly, from the location of the film to the gender of the participants. The initial segment, set in New York, tells the tale with a male flirt in turmoil over his relationship with a woman. The film then moves to Berlin, where the same drama is played out amongst a gay male couple, with an added touch of self-reflexive humor. The third and final episode takes place in Tokyo, with a female flirt and a more abstract cinematic approach, including several sequences in traditional Japanese pantomime. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Sage, Parker Posey, (more)
- 1991
Angelo (Dexter Fletcher) and two of his buddies set out to rob a Swiss bank, and from the start things don't go well. The man driving the getaway car packed up and left before anyone could connect him with the crime, and Angelo's other partner got shot and killed. The best he can do is grab someone's cash-filled briefcase and take a car and its driver hostage. It turns out that the driver is the daughter (Fabienne Babe) of the bank director, so he figures that she's good for ransom money and begins negotiations for that. Meanwhile, the briefcase he took at the bank turns out to have belonged to a man who is willing to hire killers to get it back for him. The situation grows increasingly perilous for him, and he decides to flee the scene -- but not before he has won the heart of his lovely hostage. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fabienne Babe, Dexter Fletcher, (more)
- 1989
- R
Noted French director Claude Chabrol helmed this oddity, a remake of German director Fritz Lang's 1922 classic Dr. Mabuse. The film features an all-star international cast as it tells the futuristic horror story of a bizarre epidemic which has swept West Berlin leaving a grim trail of grisly suicides. Meanwhile, the media broadcasts weird, highly suggestive propaganda. The authorities are appalled by all the bloodshed, but only one lone cop suspects that the "suicides" are really the work of a demented criminal mastermind. The film is also known as Dr. M. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Bates, Jennifer Beals, (more)
- 1987
Gaspard Manesse plays Julien, an 11-year-old Catholic boarding-school resident during the Nazi occupation of France. He is witness to the courage of his instructors, who defy the German's anti-Semitic policies and quietly enroll Jewish children into the school under assumed names. Manesse befriends Jean (Raphael Fejto), one of these "instant Catholics." The refugee children are betrayed by a hostile ex-employee of the school, forcing Julien once more to be a bystander to history as Jean and the teachers are arrested. For this return to the French film industry after several years in the US, Louis Malle purged himself of his own bitter memories of life under the thumbs of the Nazis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gaspard Manesse, Raphaël Fejtö, (more)
- 1987
Alexander is a concert pianist living in Amsterdam. He is also a survivor of the Holocaust, and in his personal life he is startlingly nonverbal and uncommunicative. Nonetheless, he has a close enough relationship with his niece that they are able to play some lovely four-handed piano pieces together. The two of them apparently share some deep secret, but what that is never becomes entirely clear. When the niece returns to his Hamburg flat with her combat-photographer boyfriend, Alexander decides to keep tabs on her. Meanwhile, he is attempting to continue his work of reconciling himself with his painful past. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Fitz, Renee Fokker, (more)
- 1984
When Nazi "exterminator" Adolph Eichmann was tried for war crimes in 1961, more than one observer, taking into consideration Eichmann's "normal" veneer, commented upon "the banality of evil." Much the same can be said of the quietly chilling docudrama The Wannsee Conference. This re-creation of a January, 1942 meeting of several Nazi officials is based on the actual minutes of the conference. In calm, measured tones, the various Nazi higher-ups discuss the extermination of Europe's Jewish population. The film is shot in "real time": it runs 87 minutes, precisely the same amount of time consumed by the actual event. Don't let anyone ever tell you that a film consisting of an hour and a half of conversation is dull: The Wannsee Conference is one of the most disturbing pictures ever committed to celluloid. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Artzorn, Friedrich Georg Beckhaus, (more)
- 1984
An aging Nazi war criminal, "Doktor S.," was convicted of killing more than 11,000 people in Byelorussia and Lithuania during World War II and served 18 years in prison before being released due to poor health, bad eyesight, and old age. He tells his story in this unusual docudrama, leaving the viewers to sort out the limited information gleaned from his recollections. He complains because he lost his good standing with the SS when his brother came to Germany from the U.S. and started criticizing the Nazis. It does not matter that his brother died in Buchenwald; Doktor S. still resents him for ruining his position within the Gestapo. Next, the man explains how he had to work his way back into favor by committing atrocities -- but when confronted with specifics, the story told by Doktor S. raises more questions than it answers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Kramer
- 1983
This excellent three-part documentary focuses on the art and techniques of filmmaking as found first, in the editing of US Westerns, next in the editing of German documentaries, and finally, in the interpretations of experimental filmmakers. American directors in the first segment include Edwin S. Porter (The Great Train Robbery) and D.W. Griffith (The Battle at Elderbrush Gulch). In focus is the method for showing duels between gunslingers, and the technology of editing in the first half of the 20th century. In part II, German documentarians include Nicholas Kaufmann and Wilhelm Prager (Ways to Strength and Beauty, 1925) and Ella Bergmann-Michel (Street Salesman, 1920) and later directors like Peter Nestler (A Worker's Club in Sheffield, 1965) and Klaus Wildenhahn (In der Fremde, 1967). An interview with Joris Ivens and clips from his Spanish Earth (1937) end this segment. In the last part, there are interviews with Werner Nekes, Jean-Marie Straub, Daniele Huillet, and others on the nature and art of experimental filmmaking. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- 1981
The humor in this film centers around a man in his pajamas and bathrobe who goes out to buy some cigarettes on the corner and encounters a series of events that have him chased by some inept policemen, an angry husband, a taxi driver, and so forth. Things continue to deteriorate from there, and for some viewers, their funny bones will be picked dry after the first few scenes. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Otto Sander, Peter Fitz, (more)
- 1977
In this drama, the means by which a monopolistic corporation fixes prices to soak the consumer is shown in detail. A conscience-stricken executive, Bernd (Peter Fitz) reveals the company's insider shenanigans to the public, which results in a governmental investigation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Fitz, Dorothea Moritz, (more)
