Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT)

Petra von Kant is a successful, wealthy fashion designer. The failure of her second marriage has left her in a state of crisis. She belittles and exploits her quiet assistant, Marlene, who lives and works with her. When a friend introduces Petra to the young model Karin Thimm, she starts a relationship with her and pushes her career. But cracks soon start to show in their private life. Karin doesn’t even try to hide her affairs from Petra and finally leaves her for her Australian husband, who turns up out of the blue. Petra is alone again, and when her mother and daughter come by to celebrate her birthday, the situation escalates.

First performed as a play at the TAT in Frankfurt in 1971 and filmed in 1972, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s examination of his own manipulative, power-abusive relationships and a self-reflection; but it is also a universal study of a person’s increasing loneliness due to the loss of their capacity to love and their unappeasable desire to get the love they need.  Director Lilja Rupprecht sees Petra von Kant’s work as a fashion designer as a metaphor for “designing” a better, more loving person, on the one hand, and for new life and work concepts that the characters in the play (are doomed to) fail at, on the other.