It's hard to watch this film and not think about all the ways it remains evergreen in social and political relevance. Its story about a woman torn to shreds by a cold, unfeeling police and press system as well as the men in her life who use her but don't defend her is arguably more reflective of current ideas of scare-quotes cancel culture (bleh) than ever before. But digging deeper than that reveals more interesting facets of the film: the way Angela Winkler's performance both doesn't provide the viewer with any real moments of emotional wreckage that we would expect from her situation and yet conveys a staggering and devastating deterioration by the film's end, the aforementioned usage of the film's male cast as a reflection of Katharina Blum's own isolation from anyone who really cares for her (even Gotten), and the ending speech which condemns tabloid journalism in a wonderfully hypocritical way. I'm not as big a fan of the film's emotional distance, especially for this narrative where it feels like you would want to feel that same tension and trauma with Blum (and there are some scenes scattered about where it gets close but) and the film's central thesis can get a bit repetitive towards the middle (police interrogate, press lie about Blum, Blum becomes pariah, repeat), but otherwise it's a well-executed social drama about the limits of societal anxiety pressed onto one person.
It's hard to watch this film and not think about all the ways it remains evergreen in social and political relevance. Its story about a woman torn to shreds by a cold, unfeeling police and press system as well as the men in her life who use her but don't defend her is arguably more reflective of current ideas of scare-quotes cancel culture (bleh) than ever before. But digging deeper than that reveals more interesting facets of the film: the way Angela Winkler's performance both doesn't provide the viewer with any real moments of emotional wreckage that we would expect from her situation and yet conveys a staggering and devastating deterioration by the film's end, the aforementioned usage of the film's male cast as a reflection of Katharina Blum's own isolation from anyone who really cares for her (even Gotten), and the ending speech which condemns tabloid journalism in a wonderfully hypocritical way. I'm not as big a fan of the film's emotional distance, especially for this narrative where it feels like you would want to feel that same tension and trauma with Blum (and there are some scenes scattered about where it gets close but) and the film's central thesis can get a bit repetitive towards the middle (police interrogate, press lie about Blum, Blum becomes pariah, repeat), but otherwise it's a well-executed social drama about the limits of societal anxiety pressed onto one person.
