The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Screening as part of BFI's UK-wide season Too Much: Melodrama on Film. See any 3 titles in the season for £24 when you book them together – simply log in and add the tickets to your basket, and the discount will be applied at checkout.

This screening will include an introduction by Dr. Paul Flaig, Lecturer in Film Studies at University of St. Andrews

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is a blistering chamber piece from the impossibly prolific German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (this was only 1 of 4 features he directed that year). Fassbinder picked up the torch from forebears like Douglas Sirk, and took melodrama into emotionally raw, often misanthropic territory, where moments of tenderness nonetheless ring true. 

Based on Fassbinder’s play of the same name, the film stars a female cast and takes place entirely in the home of ageing fashion designer Petra von Kant, as her romance with a much younger woman curdles into obsession. Fassbinder makes the absolute most from his single location, transforming a set-up that could be stagey and theatrical in someone else’s hands into something truly cinematic and almost painfully intimate.

Fassbinder’s films often feel ground-breaking in their approach to their characters’ queerness, especially when we consider this film is over 50 years old. For Fassbinder’s characters, their queerness is simply a matter of fact. 

Crucially, Fassbinder was unafraid to present his characters as flawed and human. The central character of Petra was supposedly based on Fassbinder, and the director pulls absolutely no punches in his caustic self-excoriation. 

Stunningly designed and creatively staged, the film is an extremely prescient and ferocious examination of power dynamics, as well as a fascinating character piece. 

Supported by the BFI Film Audience Network, awarding funding on behalf of the BFI National Lottery.