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The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer) (imdb)
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The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

1972
Drama
2h 4m
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Avg Percentile 70.63% from 668 total ratings

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(668)
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Rated 03 Jan 2009
87
94th
Compelling character study of a villainous fashion designer's fall from grace, the apartment setting and use of silences gives an unbearable, claustrophobic tension to the hysteric proceedings. On a superficial level, the costumes and gaudy aesthetics are incredible.
Rated 31 Mar 2009
100
97th
This film is soooooo intense.
Rated 26 Mar 2012
91
96th
It saves a long walk to the theater, and the show you're about to witness or already did is slowly accelerating your blood through your brain and into your subconscious. The images are delightful, the acting is cruel as it is cold and every shot is aimed at your heart. The atmosphere is admirable and nothing compares to the last despaired breath this cinematic miracle draws before it shrivels back into normality. -2012
Rated 29 Dec 2013
80
74th
The characters and relationships are interesting but the compositions framed up by Fassbinder are colossal. There is so much you can read into the way each shot is lined up. The colour palette of the film is another striking element of the visual design and probably contains enough meaning to keep 10 film PhD students writing for a year. While the film is glorious to look at, what's more amazing is that not much happens and yet it isn't tedious to sit through!
Rated 25 Aug 2007
85
95th
A work of immense emotional intelligence and aesthetic brilliance. I suppose it's not for everyone, though. It features six women and no men, and doesn't do much to cover up the fact that it's adapted from a play - it looks and feels like one.
Rated 03 Nov 2008
80
68th
In synopsis, the story sounds lame. Fassbinder gets it to work. Please trust me on this.
Rated 15 Apr 2010
9
97th
The kind of movie that doesn't engage, but rather absorbs you with it's atmosphere. It's not a film for everyone though, its slow, ponderous, incredibly subtle, and the blocking is so strange that the character interactions are nothing more than expressions. It's the depth of these expressions, and it's beautiful execution that makes for a highly satisfying experience. It's not the kind of film I'd watch again, but I'm sure it would be even more rewarding on a second viewing.
Rated 06 Jun 2010
91
95th
Two hours of a stylish existential morality play set in a single room with vain women discussing love and ambition. There's so many ways this could have been boring and stupid, and it kind of was, but it was also absolutely amazing and riveting. I was a little bored at times but now that it's over I kind of want to watch it again.
Rated 21 Oct 2011
85
90th
Excellent. Theatrical and intense and intelligent and weird and very aesthetically pleasing.
Rated 22 Jan 2013
88
88th
Despite it's theatrical restraints, this film still manages to entice it's viewer in a gently filmic fashion, portraying love as the complex, delicate, and insane issue it is. Not the most comfortable film to sit through, which makes it all the more fun.
Rated 30 Sep 2013
95
96th
Among blisteringly raw emotions, a scathing script and deeply drawn characters, the most captivating thing is the aesthetics of it all. It's adapted from a play, but it's so intensely filmic: beautiful compositions pointedly express everything via simple visual metaphors, characters practically dance around each other showing the ever shifting positions of power, and then those extraordinary shots where Marlene turns her head in the background and immediately our attention is solely on her gaze.
Rated 15 Nov 2013
8
80th
In a way, a master-slave picture that shows the lengths lonely people are willing to go in order to control others for their own benefit. You can feel that Fassbinder has a kind of contempt for melodramatic romance and heartbreak, yet he also takes it very seriously. He mocks the humans he writes about, in this case a self-indulgent fashion designer, yet when things become dark, there's no question as to whether or not we're affected. Unique. Fassbinder is a talented director.
Rated 15 Nov 2013
95
98th
There's no way this story could have been more perfectly executed. Gorgeous, compelling... Watch it.
Rated 25 Sep 2015
40
26th
Bergman's CRIES and Fassbinder's TEARS, both from 1972: the latter seems the work of someone who has studied Bergman closely...and learned nothing. The result is a concoction of female neurosis, symbolic camerawork and framing, and very bad melodrama. But ARE these characters really female? I'm less than convinced that Fassbinder is much of an authority on female psychology, in which case perhaps this is better understood as a film in which actresses have been asked to play male roles...in drag.
Rated 13 Jan 2017
92
92nd
A cinematic stage play. Every character lived in and passionately performed. Fassbinder orchestrates them with wisdom and ease, knowing when to use the camera as a pen or as a tool to observe and empathize with the presented human beings. The film may have PVK's name in its title, but I will never forget Marlene.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
68
32nd
I was very bored and yet very intrigued at the same time.
Rated 02 Mar 2008
72
55th
# 557
Rated 27 Jul 2008
70
78th
emotional violence
Rated 30 Nov 2008
81
91st
Great
Rated 19 Dec 2008
75
50th
503
Rated 25 Dec 2008
75
46th
A theatrical, meticulous movie. But not my kind of stuff, unfortunately.
Rated 30 Jun 2009
4
93rd
Master-slave dialectic put on film, with some really unsympathetic characters to back it up. Too bad it's not very engaging, although the Marlene character opens up for some interesting metaphoric interpretations. The talent of Fassbinder is evident, but I admit it took some iron will to sit this one through.
Rated 15 Jan 2010
74
48th
519
Rated 29 Jan 2011
30
78th
"Not exactly the most comfortable film of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's career." - Ed Gonzalez
Rated 15 Feb 2011
60
35th
By the end of this Fassbinder film it does get very interesting with its titular character and fascinating. Sadly however, the first half drags horrifically.
Rated 30 Nov 2011
73
46th
#543
Rated 13 Jul 2013
90
79th
Takes the form of a stage play put seems more like an essay because this is such an academic work. You have to know something about feminist theory to figure out what exactly Fassbinder is critiquing and why this film is (wrongly in my mind) controversial.
Rated 20 Jan 2015
40
31st
I found this story very boring and stagy and could not sit it through.
Rated 30 Nov 2015
39
35th
(Rewatch) OK yeah i definitely understand why i wasn't crazy about this the first time, it's very unabashedly stagey and basically consists of long theatrical monologues, almost like Fassbinder doing a Bergman thing (but better, and more interestingly shot, by Ballhaus of course). I can at least appreciate it for what it is now, and parts are even pretty great (the Walker Brothers song!) It's probably best, and most interesting, to read it as gender-swapped autobiography on Fassbinder's part.
Rated 16 Feb 2017
85
87th
kahrolsun ask yasasin is as cintonik
Rated 07 Oct 2017
6
40th
Camerawork so deliberate, intense and dramatic that it's just about to fall into parody. And that's the best thing here. You'll be forgiven for thinking this is imitating/mocking Bergman.
Rated 19 Nov 2017
85
94th
85 kere durdurup devam ederek izlememe rağmen çok etkileyiciydi. keşke farklı bi zamanda tanısaydım seni ama yine de güzeldi.
Rated 05 Feb 2018
70
30th
More pretentious and less engrossing than any other Fassbinder film I've seen. I did appreciate that not a single male actor appears on screen for the entire thing, but wish he was better able to absorb me into these particular female characters. In a strange way, I would say this is Fassbinder's Desperate Living, though maybe just because its a lesbian movie made by a gay man.
Rated 11 Mar 2018
83
73rd
Very surprising movie.
Rated 21 Aug 2020
58
16th
Well directed and acted, but way too static with uninteresting dialogues and monologues by annoying characters. It has its moments; like the incredible ending.
Rated 22 Dec 2020
100
99th
:(
Rated 28 Nov 2021
85
90th
I’m pretty sure at this point that any film that has a genuine melancholic soul is bound to be great. / “I think people need each other, they're made that way. But they haven't learnt how to live together.” “I’m not hysterical, I’m suffering”.
Rated 30 Apr 2022
90
80th
Viewed March 12, 2022. Fassbinder's inventive staging of this space tells us as much as any of the dialogue; it's airless and claustrophobic, but the ornate mural and the ringing telephone and the blinding sun shining through the windows all suggest the possibility of life outside of this world and its toxic antecedents. And yet, no one ever leaves.
Rated 23 May 2022
91
98th
No, this isn't "filmed theatre." While obviously the actresses carry a lot of weight here, so much here is done by the camera - we're not supposed to be watching this, it's too personal, too toxic, yet Fassbinder locks us in this room. Incredibly intense.
Rated 19 Jun 2022
5
73rd
made me think of buddy maxcoombes' depressed observation about martha that "where other great directors open doors, fassbinder seems only to close them". it's true, but it's simply a matter of honesty, no? i'm not sure we've opened as many doors as we'd like to tell ourselves since 1945 (or sirk), and there remains a lot to learn about the macro from watching the same old atrocities play out--with such immaculate precision and aggressive bluntness--in sealed off apartments and bedrooms.
Rated 12 Jul 2022
43
6th
I plan to revisit this at some point perhaps--I suspect it might have just caught me in the wrong mood. The acting is good, but it just bored me until the last half hour or so.
Rated 19 Feb 2024
75
76th
This is essentially filmed theatre, but all the players are experts. Carstensen does a phenomenal job playing a complicated lead, and Schygulla is mesmerising.

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