"Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant" or "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant" is a West German film from almost 45 years ago and chronologically it is in the middle of writer and director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's prolific, but short-lived career. The cast is exclusively female. Men are only seen on photos or as naked statues. 3 of the 6 actresses in here were nominated or won German Film Awards for their roles here and these winners include lead actress Margit Carstensen, who plays the title character. Unfortunately, I personally did not find these 125 minutes too convincing. All this awards recognition is a bit of a joke. The actresses seem really lackluster, which is generally a problem with several of the directors' works. Of course, it can be one character's way to speak so boringly, but here everybody does it. And that is not realistic anymore. No passion, no enthusiasm, even in emotional moments. It surprises me to see that this is among Fassbinder's most known works. It is not a disaster by any means, but I felt it dragged on several occasions and the characters simply weren't interesting enough to watch for such a long time. The good thing with Fassbinder is always that he goes for realism instead of forced happy developments and endings, but even from the perspective of this being an early gay-themed film, I cannot see a lot of value.There are some Fassbinder films I like and some I do not like. This one here falls among the latter and I do not recommend checking it out if you plan on getting into the man's work. Instead, a good start may be "Martha", another Fassbinder movie starring Margit Carstensen from a couple years later. This was a great watch. As for this one here, I believe the material is more fitting for a stage adaptation really if they add a bit more focus, cut out the many irrelevant moments and give it a more modern touch. This 1972 version does not do too much for me and that is why I think you should watch something else instead. Thumbs down. The only aspect that convinced me in here was the set decoration, which is almost always good in Fassbinder's films and this one is no exception.

***User-reviewer Alice Liddel ("A searing reminder of what a galvanising experience cinema could be.", Alice Liddel from dublin, ireland 26 March 2001) has an excellent review. Also, Markboulos ("Fassbinder at his finest! Cinema at its finest!", markboulos from Brooklyn, NYC, 3 February 2000) captures the film's quality. Shane James Bordas ("Key Film From The German Master", Shane James Bordas from United Kingdom, 22 August 2006) describes the film's origins. Finally, Lexo-2 ("Great film, glad I don't live there", Lexo-2 from Dublin, Ireland, 1 May 1999) has a nice summary.***"The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972, Rainer Werner Fassbinder​ ), a ladies-only slumber party​, is a slow-paced masterpiece from the renowned German filmmaker. Adapted from Fassbinder's own play, it is set in a single apartment. It consists entirely of conversation that is spoken by world-weary characters. While it will likely bore many casual film-goers, it is a sublime achievement for those willing to stick it out. "Bitter Tears" is very profound and informs on the human condition in various ways.The titular character, Petra (Margit Carstensen), is a celebrity fashion designer. Petra is used to emotionally dominating the people who surround her. Having been married twice before, Petra explains to her visiting cousin Sidonie (Kartin Schaake) that men now repulse her and women are currently her romantic gender of choice. ("Bitter Tears" shows us a lesbian triangle which seems unusually bold for 1974.) Petra employs a silent servant named Marlene (Irm Hermann) that she continually mistreats. Because Marlene is obviously in love with Petra, her quiet suffering is mesmerizing to observe. (BTW, Fassbinder leaves two essential questions about Marlene unresolved: 1) Is she a mute or just unable to speak in Petra's presence? 2) Is she entirely or partly responsible for Petra's professional success? Leaving Marlene's relationship with Petra ambiguous is an example of Fassbinder's elite skill at story-telling.) Through Sidonie, Petra meets attractive Karin (Hanna Schygulla). Karin is separated from her husband. Petra immediately falls for her. She tells Karin she has a future as a fashion model. When Karin arrives for a second visit, Petra assumes her customary role as sexual predator. While treating Marlene miserably, Petra tries to seduce the seemingly confused Karin. Unexpectedly, Karin is the real shark. We learn she is taking advantage of Petra. Karin will ultimately stick an emotional dagger through Petra's soul, rejecting her and torturing her before revealing she is returning to her husband. Realizing the consequences of opening one's heart at the wrong place and time, Petra falls apart. On her birthday, Petra has a nervous breakdown which is witnessed by Sidonie, along with Petra's Mother and Daughter.While interpretations of this film vary, Fassbinder is said to be showing how a group of people can all simultaneously reside in their own mental prisons. He's also employing substitution on many levels. The characters here are all drawn from Fassbinder's relationships with his recurring cast members as well as his conservative mother. As a celebrity designer, Petra is an obvious stand-in for Fassbinder himself. The silent Marlene is regarded as representing the audience early, and later, Karin. (Fassbinder reviewers have noted in other films he uses female characters as substitutes for real-life men he knows.)Visually, Fassbinder is electric. He is always on point with his imagery; even though this is a low budget production. On the apartment wall there is "a large reproduction of Poussin's Midas and Bacchus (c.1630), which depicts naked and partially clothed men (Wikipedia)." As Petr describes her sexual preference for women to Sidonie, the audience will have little difficulty in discovering the (sleeping) endowment of Poussin's central nude male in the background. Petra's words and the Poussin figure's little man seems to be Fassbinder describing his own homosexuality. Even though a homo-erotic painting is often present, and a lesbian triangle is in the story, "Bitter Tears" has enough mild eroticism for every individual audience member, regardless their preferred sleeping arrangement. ("Bitter Tears" arrives decades before the Internet confirms the interest hetero guys have in watching lesbians.)Fassbinder favorite Hanna Schygulla is adorable as the femme fatale. Meanwhile, Margit Carstensen (Petra), also attractive, turns in a superb performance as Petra. (She won awards in Germany, but inexplicably she was not internationally recognized.)The origin of "Bitter Tears" is legendary. Fassbinder is said to have written the screenplay on an 11-hour plane trip from Germany to L.A. Upon landing, he immediately ordered his film crew (which traveled with him) to return to Germany where they made it in 10 days. This is all astonishing because many reviewers regard "Bitter Tears" as Fassbinder's crowning achievement.Cinephiles with some patience should not miss this Fassbinder classic.

Perhaps this film was controversial when it was first released--with its themes of bisexuality/lesbianism. However, in the 21st century it is no longer shocking. Because of this, the film can be examined NOT for its shock value but for its actual content and pacing. And, when seen in that light, the film seems VERY static and dull. I'm talking REAL dull. The characters talk and talk and talk and suffer from so MUCH angst. My idea of interesting is NOT watching a spoiled German woman get drunk and depressed! This movie is definitely for some tastes but not for all. Be forewarned! There are many better German films as well as Fassbinder films--try these first.

The archetypal mid-period Fassbinder film of the kind so lovingly pastiched/parodied in Francois Ozon's 'Water Falling on Burning Rocks'. Like much of his early work, the film is based on his own play, which 'limitation' Fassbinder compounds by refusing to open it out - imprisonment and immobility being central Fassbinder themes, as well as providing the metaphors that theatre provokes - role-playing, dual/multiple identities, staging. The film is like a prison drama - its four acts never leave Petra's preposterously ornate bedroom, filled with dolls, mannequins (she is a fashion designer), and the kind of obtrusive decor that allows Fassbinder to compose intricate multiple-frame tableaux - and neither does Petra. In the 'real' world of the film, she is a jet-setter, attending celebrity shows, photo-shoots, but in the film world, she is paralysed, stuck not only in this bedroom, but in a circumscribed series of poses and movements, not to mention stock phrases and attitudes. if she makes any progress at all, it is a negative one, as she declines from empty rhetoric about freedom to a horrified admission of her own self-entrapment, appropriately visualised in the bars of her bed-frame, and the mirror that reflects her back on herself, consumes her, like Narcissus, sucked into her own self-love, her gestures at role-play doomed attempts at consolidating her own egotistical power. What's worse, other characters seem as imprisoned as her, but they can come and go, even if they are doomed to return, condemned to the same relations with Petra, even if power-relations shift. Only one character seems to break free - Karin - and that is by using, humiliating and ditching Petra. Like 'All about my mother', 'Bitter Tears' is a loose remake of 'All About Eve' - Petra is even paying alimony to a certain 'Joseph Mankiewicz'. Karin is the rising star who submits herself to an elder mentor for as long as it suits before dumping her when she has taken what she needs. Of course, Fassbinder elides any Hollywood melodrama inherent in such a set-up: each 'act' involves a large time gap, so that Karin's turning nasty seems disturbingly abrupt. Stylistically, the film's closed world is matched by the restricted camera movements and murky colours. Fassbinder constantly distances us from the melodrama, by compositions at once comic and mocking - the tears of two women being framed by mannequins etc. In one brilliant scene, Petra talks to Sidonie while looking into her hand mirror so that she appears to be talking to herself, both Sidonie and her 'reflection' interrogating her. The women's bodies are undermined not only by unflattering framing, but by the fetishistic, limbless plastic figures surrounding them. Most incongruous of all is the large wall size painting that forms a background to the film, a large classical subject with abandoned child, prone woman and upright man, continually ironising, mocking, undermining the narrative, even provoking it, as characters pose in a similar fashion. There is one crucial difference - the man - the crucial absence from this male-mediated female psychodrama. Well, one of two. Another is the speech of Petra's long-suffering servant Marlene, who may, or may not, be the real creative force behind Petra's success, who exists in a Beckett-like relationship with her mistress as the latter, like Hamm in 'Endgame', winds down towards inertia. Like the audience, she is mute, and observing. She is also the one sympathetic character, her isolation and anguish eloquently expressed in some very moving composions as she stands behind screens, unable to say no.