Section: Everything stays different?

DAS DEUTSCHE KETTENSÄGENMASSAKER

THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE

Christoph Schlingensief
Germany, 1990, 63 Min

They came as friends and became sausage! Christoph Schlingensief's cynical commentary on German reunification polarised audiences and industry multipliers from the moment of its premiere screening. His staged performance on dramatic encounters along the inner-German frontier brought him to the attention of a wider audience, at the same time generating predictably hostile reactions.

Homage to Tobe Hooper's horror classic THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE from 1974, as is strongly hinted to in the title, this one-hour work combines motifs from the Slasher genre with more performative speculations on cross-German encounters along the inner-German frontier. To get her hands on the coveted West Mark as soon as possible after the fall of the Berlin Wall young Clara sets off for the West. There, however, she encounters members of a sinister butcher's family who have their own ideas about how to implement the “incorporation” of the East. Taking obvious delight in the proceedings the family members gradually shake off any inhibitions and lose themselves in a veritable, if artificial, bloodlust hysteria.

Shortly before the scheduled national release in November 1990 several cinemas withdrew their agreement to screen the film. This largely improvised work was considered too extreme at the time, coming only a year after the fall of the wall. From today's perspective the film strikes the viewer as a grotesque-macabre foreboding of things to come. CL

Filmformat
DCP | Farbe / Colour
Drehbuch
Christoph Schlingensief
Kamera
Christoph Schlingensief, Voxi Bärenklau
Ton
Eckhard Kuchenbecker
Schnitt
Ariane Traub
Ausstattung
Uli Hanisch
Musik
Jacques Arr
Darsteller
Karina Fallenstein, Susanne Bredehöft, Artur Albrecht, Volker Spengler, Alfred Edel, Brigitte Kausch, Dietrich Kuhlbrodt, Reinald Schnell, Udo Kier, Irm Hermann, Eva Maria Kurz, Ingrid Raguschke, Mike Wiedemann
Produzent
Christoph Schlingensief
Produktion
DEM Filmproduktion, Mühlheim
Kontakt
Filmgalerie 451 GmbH & Co. KG
Frieder Schlaich
Saarbrücker Straße 24
10405 Berlin
Germany
kino@filmgalerie451.de
+49-(0)30-33982800
Christoph Schlingensief

Christoph Schlingensief - born in 1960 in Oberhausen, died 2010 in Berlin, Germany. (Theatre) director, actor, artist, author. In addition to numerous short films, he also shot and worked for television, staged plays and operas, and was artistically and socially active. THE GERMAN CHAINSAW MASSACRE is part of his “Germany trilogy”, which he created between 1989 and 1992.

Movies
TUNGUSKA – DIE KISTEN SIND DA (1984)
MUTTERS MASKE (1988)
100 JAHRE ADOLF HITLER – DIE LETZTE STUNDE IM FÜHRERBUNKER (1989)
TERROR 2000 – INTENSIVSTATION DEUTSCHLAND (1992)
UNITED TRASH (1995)