The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant 1972 Movie Review

『A Portrait of a Woman Crumbling at the Crossroads of Love and Power』

🎥 Movie Overview

🎬 Title: Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, 1972)
🌍 Country: 🇩🇪 West Germany
🎞️ Genre: Psychological Drama / Queer / Theatrical Mise-en-scène
⏳ Runtime: 124 minutes
📢 Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
🖋️ Screenplay: Based on Fassbinder’s play of the same name

👩‍💼 Cast: Margit Carstensen – Petra
Hanna Schygulla – Karin
Irm Hermann – Marlene

🧩 In-Depth Story Exploration (Spoilers)

🎭 A Theatrical Chamber Drama: The Stage of Power

The most striking feature of the film is that the entire setting is confined to the bedroom-cum-studio of fashion designer Petra von Kant. This originates from Fassbinder’s adaptation of his own stage play, but once translated into cinema, it creates a powerful sense of claustrophobia and symbolizes the emotional prison of the characters.

• Mise-en-scène and Symbolism: The luxurious and decadent bourgeois interior of the early 1970s reflects Petra’s narcissism and isolated world. The bedroom wall covered with Nicolas Poussin’s "Midas and Bacchus"—the only male nude image in the film—suggests the patriarchal norms and male-centered power structures that haunt the relationships between the women, even in their absence.

• Acting: With an all-female cast, Fassbinder’s troupe delivers deliberately exaggerated, theatrical performances. Margit Carstensen (Petra) and Hanna Schygulla (Karin), central figures in Fassbinder’s artistic circle, heighten the melodramatic emotions while simultaneously forcing viewers to maintain analytical distance from the characters’ dynamics.

🧠 The Dynamics of Love and Exploitation (Power Dynamics)

Through this film, Fassbinder dissects the problem of domination and submission within relationships disguised as “love.” This becomes particularly evident in the triangular dynamics around Petra.

• Petra and Karin: When the successful designer Petra meets the young and beautiful Karin, she is immediately fascinated and begins to sponsor her. At first, Petra uses her wealth and influence to control Karin by making her a model. However, Karin manipulates Petra’s genuine affection, turning it into an opportunity for her own career. Ultimately, Petra, who once held power, becomes emotionally dependent and falls into the position of a humiliated masochist.

• Petra and Marlene: Petra’s assistant Marlene remains silent throughout the entire film, carrying out Petra’s orders without a single spoken line. She sketches, dresses, and pours drinks for Petra, absorbing Petra’s narcissistic and sadistic impulses. Marlene embodies class-based exploitation and emotional subjugation, her silence and absence of voice becoming her very mode of existence.

Fassbinder shows that the oppressor/victim and dominant/submissive structures often found in heterosexual relationships are not bound to gender—they manifest universally in all human relations when love becomes a tool for exploitation.

🪞 The Language of Style: Costumes and Makeup

Petra’s extravagant, and at times grotesque, costumes and wigs serve as a crucial visual language that reflects her shifting identity and psychological state.

• The Changing Petra: Petra dons new wigs and outfits at each stage of her relationship, each costume a projection of a new self—a façade. When confident, she wears bold and dazzling clothes, but when abandoned by Karin and sinking into despair, her appearance collapses along with her psyche.

• The Silent Marlene: In contrast, Marlene consistently wears black, symbolizing her unchanging role of subservience and representing the hidden labor and sacrifice behind Petra’s flamboyance. She becomes the fixed point in Petra’s whirlwind of emotions, the one element that never wavers.

🔗 The Meaning of Bitter Tears and the Ending

The climax occurs when Petra, abandoned by Karin, drunkenly lashes out at her mother, daughter, cousin, and others around her. Through this frenzy, she recognizes that the domination and exploitation she inflicted on others have inevitably circled back to herself. It appears to be a moment of realization, perhaps even of breaking the cycle.

🎬 The Irony of the Ending

Suggesting change, Petra offers Marlene equal treatment and even proposes they become business partners in her fashion venture. Yet Marlene silently packs her belongings and leaves. This symbolic departure opens the film to multiple interpretations:

1. Rejection of Freedom: Marlene has found her identity and stability within the submissive relationship. She rejects the responsibility and renegotiation of roles that Petra’s offer of “freedom” would entail.
2. Ultimate Independence: By acting for the first time—walking out—Marlene asserts herself as a true subject, finally liberated from Petra’s control.

Fassbinder ultimately shows that Petra’s “bitter tears” may provide temporary emotional release, but the structures of domination and exploitation embedded in human relationships are enduring and difficult to dismantle. This film crystallizes the essence of Fassbinder’s cinema—where love and suffering are sublimated through extreme formalism and melodramatic intensity.

🎯 Personal Rating (Taste-Based)

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥
⭐ Rating: ★☆