The Lost Honor of Katharina BlumPerception is reality. Of course, we all know this to be untrue in our heart of hearts; but haven't you glanced at a newsfeed online or read a paper, seen a news story and reached a conclusion before the facts are in? Does that mean that you are a judgmental person? Yes and no; it is in our nature to reach conclusions based on information available, right or wrong. Imagine if this characteristic were exploited, abused for profit. Now consider the nature of the press, of the danger of journalism without integrity. This is the terror at the heart of The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, even worse than the fascistic police who trample her rights.
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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum follows the eponymous Katharina, played by Angela Winkler, as her life is destroyed by the press in less than one week. A young but altogether reserved divorcee--she is casually referred to as "The Nun" in private by her more exuberant friends at a party--she finds comfort in the arms of a man she meets at a party, Ludwig Götten (Jürgen Prochnow), who also happens to be a fugitive at the moment, one who has been under constant surveillance since his flight. Ludwig is handsome, even striking, and his magnetism not only gets him invited to the party Katharina attends in the first place, but also gives him the opportunity to seduce her. "Seduce" may not be the right word; as Katharina observes when she is being interrogated by a cadre of brutish police, including lead inspector Beizmenne (Mario Adorf), "advances" were not made on her by Ludwig, but "tenderness". Some of the events which led to the police storming down her humble apartment door the morning after their intimate rendezvous are recalled via flashback. But even though Ludwig is often portrayed in a flattering, almost martyred light compared to the police and the press, there is the sense that he was capitalizing on the opportunity to flee police custody from the start. Of course, this raises the bigger question about why the police didn't simply arrest him, instead of keep him under constant surveillance, employing such elaborate means as a planted party-goer dressed as a sheik. The answer to this is the same as to why the popular news publication, called "The Paper", sends their most unscrupulous of reporters in the form of Werner Tötges (Dieter Laser) to drudge up any and all dirt on Katharina Blum he can find...and twist it into a savage defamation of her character: the story isn't "sexy" enough for mass consumption yet. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum was made in 1975, a time when in West Germany, the popular fear of terrorism and debate surrounding the topic was a hot-button issue. Ludwig is intimated to be a Communist terrorist, and anyone with associations to "the reds" were highly scrutinized. It is a fashionable topic to evoke fear in the populous, as much then as it is today. With the prevalence of surveillance, government intrusion, and the exuberance for the media to exploit those tied to the events, it's even more shocking to see just how little it has changed in over forty years, in Germany or even in the United States.
In addition to being a story about the abuses inflicted by the police and the media, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum also addresses the double standard of sexual activity for men and women. Katharina is not promiscuous, although there is the suggestion that following her divorce, she had an affair with a client, or at least received gifts from him. But that aside, when her residence is stormed by the police, Beizmenne almost immediately sets into her about their one-night stand, leading to a series of attacks on her virtue as she is taken to the police station. Here, Beizmenne and his colleague, whom Katharina identifies as a former client of her employer, who also had made advances on her before, interrogate her about her sexual behavior and her association with Ludwig, and there is the sense that they do this in the same way that vindictive boys would to punish a woman for passing them up for sex. Her treatment by the police is reminiscent of Franz Kafka's "The Trial", since Katharina is also treated like a criminal, but not charged, and made an example of to suit a particular perception of order in the world. Her name and pictures become front page material, and she becomes a sensational story literally overnight. Tötges and his cronies apparently stop at nothing to make the story as profitable as possible, even posing as a doctor to glean information from Katharina's dying mother. Even Beizmenne and Tötges exchange information, and it is clear that they conspire to make the story more complex than it is to suit their mutual desires. The ubiquitous media is felt from the very start of the film, as a spy records Ludwig on a camera, capturing footage to unleash upon the world later, not unlike the camera brought in and set up even as the armored police break down the door to Katharina's place. Beizmenne and the police know that there is a weak connection between Katharina and Ludwig at best, but are so strapped for something hot to serve up to justify their abuses that they are willing to go so far as to scrutinize the mileage driven on her automobile. This scene in the film is especially revealing about Katharina, because her response about the discrepancy due to her desire to take a drive after work to clear her head reveals that she is not some "super criminal" or co-conspirator, but a lonely, young woman who just wanted to feel some companionship for one night, to feel that she has the right to be free of judgment and persecution, and not to be punished for it. The scandal ultimately causes her to break down, a victim of "the system", where the media-fed public rally against her without rationale. It is a scary message carried in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, one which is a constant reminder to be vigilant against the manipulative wiles of propaganda, and reinforcing the adage that "you can't always believe everything you read in the papers".
Recommended for: Fans of a pointed social commentary and thriller about journalistic integrity and what the absence of it leads to, as well as how easily public perception can be swayed in the wake of a scandal, regardless of a lack of evidence. It's easy to imagine ourselves in Katharina's shoes, getting swept up in the frenzy.
In addition to being a story about the abuses inflicted by the police and the media, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum also addresses the double standard of sexual activity for men and women. Katharina is not promiscuous, although there is the suggestion that following her divorce, she had an affair with a client, or at least received gifts from him. But that aside, when her residence is stormed by the police, Beizmenne almost immediately sets into her about their one-night stand, leading to a series of attacks on her virtue as she is taken to the police station. Here, Beizmenne and his colleague, whom Katharina identifies as a former client of her employer, who also had made advances on her before, interrogate her about her sexual behavior and her association with Ludwig, and there is the sense that they do this in the same way that vindictive boys would to punish a woman for passing them up for sex. Her treatment by the police is reminiscent of Franz Kafka's "The Trial", since Katharina is also treated like a criminal, but not charged, and made an example of to suit a particular perception of order in the world. Her name and pictures become front page material, and she becomes a sensational story literally overnight. Tötges and his cronies apparently stop at nothing to make the story as profitable as possible, even posing as a doctor to glean information from Katharina's dying mother. Even Beizmenne and Tötges exchange information, and it is clear that they conspire to make the story more complex than it is to suit their mutual desires. The ubiquitous media is felt from the very start of the film, as a spy records Ludwig on a camera, capturing footage to unleash upon the world later, not unlike the camera brought in and set up even as the armored police break down the door to Katharina's place. Beizmenne and the police know that there is a weak connection between Katharina and Ludwig at best, but are so strapped for something hot to serve up to justify their abuses that they are willing to go so far as to scrutinize the mileage driven on her automobile. This scene in the film is especially revealing about Katharina, because her response about the discrepancy due to her desire to take a drive after work to clear her head reveals that she is not some "super criminal" or co-conspirator, but a lonely, young woman who just wanted to feel some companionship for one night, to feel that she has the right to be free of judgment and persecution, and not to be punished for it. The scandal ultimately causes her to break down, a victim of "the system", where the media-fed public rally against her without rationale. It is a scary message carried in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, one which is a constant reminder to be vigilant against the manipulative wiles of propaganda, and reinforcing the adage that "you can't always believe everything you read in the papers".
Recommended for: Fans of a pointed social commentary and thriller about journalistic integrity and what the absence of it leads to, as well as how easily public perception can be swayed in the wake of a scandal, regardless of a lack of evidence. It's easy to imagine ourselves in Katharina's shoes, getting swept up in the frenzy.