DIE FLAMBIERTE FRAU (A WOMAN IN FLAMES)

Germany, 1983, 106 minutes, Colour.
Gudrun Landgrebe, Mathieu Carriere.
Directed by Robert can Ackeren.

Die Flambierte Frau (A Woman in Flames) was written and directed by Robert van Ackeren, a noted German director and photographer specialising in offbeat studies of German society and morals.

This film focuses on Eva, an ordinary woman who is dissatisfied with her bourgeois lifestyle and opts to become a prostitute. The audience is immersed in her experience as a woman, as a callgirl, as a dominating prostitute ? with her clients and with Chris, a male prostitute, with whom she lives.

The film is a portrait of contemporary German society, a critique of its attitudes and values. It is also a feminist film, focusing on the role of women and their treatment in contemporary society ? with an ironic climax, the woman in flames, and an ironic downbeat ending.

Gudrun Landgrebe is very good in the central role of Eva. Mathieu Carriere (who has appeared in a wide range of international films, Early Morning, The Bay Boy) is once again tormented as Chris, the male prostitute.

An arresting, if not likable, film.

1. Interest in performances, themes, situations? Enjoyment? Serious exploration of values? The film's acclaim?

2. The work of the '80s German film industry: the work of Robert van Ackeren, his interests, style? A portrayal of the ordinary becoming offbeat and bizarre? Ironic? Realism and comedy, contrived and stylised exploration? Colour photography, an emphasis on interiors and decor, compositions, action?

3. German in the '80s, ordinary and bourgeois, city and suburbs, affluence? Atmosphere? The transition to the world of the call girl, exotic, sexuality and violence? The contrast between the surface world and the world below the surface? Musical score, songs?

4. The portrait of contemporary society: social, psychological, moral? Values and drives? Germany's history in the middle decades of the 20th. century? Surface, superficiality, depth? The acting out of drives and impulses? The consequences? The possibility of wholeness, healing, resolution?

5. The title and the final symbolic climax? Eva (significant name?) and her ordinary experiences, her lifestyle, her studies, thesis, her relationship with Marcus and her reaction to him, her leaving in the middle of the dinner party? Her friendship with Yvonne, the decision to become a prostitute? The transition to the prostitute's world? The clients and her treatment of them? Sexuality, violence, domination? The paraphernalia of the callgirl and her clients? The clash and her walking out on a client, her finding Chris, relating to him, love? Chris and his clients? Chris sustaining her? Their living together, their working alternately, the domestic arrangement? The effect on her? Each ignoring the other's professional world? Eva's angriness, the breaks in the friendship, Chris bringing friends home, the possibility of the restaurant, the meal and his proposal, the baby? Her angry reaction? His buying the restaurant, the clash. his death, his dousing and setting her afire? Her going with Yvonne and sitting in the street laughing? To what purpose? To what future?

6. Feminist themes, contemporary focus on women? Eva in herself, relationship with men, sexual relationships, violence, domination? The portrayal of this character as real, symbolic?

7. Yvonne as friend, working as a prostitute, support, understanding. the finale?

8. The comparisons between Chris and Eva? Contrasts? Chris and first impressions, the relationship with Eva, tenderness and love? His own life, the motivation behind his prostitution, the details of his clients? The lyrical scenes together? The cracks in their friendship, his friends, the ambition to buy the restaurant. to settle, marriage, family? The impulse to douse Eva and set her alight? His future?

9. The director's attitudes towards men and women, the possibilities of relationships, exploitation, one using the other, domination, sentiment, betrayal, hope?

10. The audience sharing the experience of Eva, of Chris, the world of their clients. sexuality? The effect of this kind of experience in understanding, emotional response to tormented people like Eva and Chris?