Liebeskonzil

1h 32min

Drama

Oskar Panizza’s The Council of Love (1895) is a blasphemous play set in 1495, during the first recorded outbreak of syphilis, which Panizza satirically presents as the punishment from Satan for sexually active humans. As a result, Panizza was imprisoned for obscenity. Schroeter alternates scenes from the Panizza’s work with a dramatization of his trial, presenting the play as an expressionist spectacle performed by actors wearing exaggerated makeup who gesture and grimace grotesquely. The film thus forms a bridge between Schroeter’s use of tableaux in his early experiments with the political urgency of his 1980s films. On the eve of the AIDS crisis, Schroeter is presciently worried about disease as an excuse for governmental repression and the oppression of sexuality. - Harvard Film Archive

Cast

Antonio Salines

Antonio Salines

Teufel / Dr. Panizza
Kurt Raab

Kurt Raab

Gerichtspräsident
Renzo Rinaldi

Renzo Rinaldi

Gottvater
Margit Carstensen

Margit Carstensen

Staatsanwältin
Heinrich Giskes

Heinrich Giskes

Verteidiger
Patrizia La Fonte

Patrizia La Fonte

Selbstmörder-Engel
Guido Polito

Guido Polito

2. Engel

Release date

12th Mar 1982

Status

Released

Spoken languages

Deutsch