Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: Ratlos (1968)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Alexander Kluge

Writer:

Alexander Kluge (writer)

Release Date:

29 October 1968 (West Germany)

Plot Keywords:

Circus

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Hannelore Hoger	...	Leni Peickert
Sigi Graue	...	Manfred Peickert (as Siegfried Graue)
Alfred Edel	...	Dr. Busch
Bernd Höltz	...	Herr von Lueptow
Eva Oertel	...	Gitti Bornemann
Kurt Jürgens	...	Mackensen, Dompteur
Gilbert Houcke	...	Houke, Dompteur
Wanda Bronska-Pampuch	...	Frau Saizewa
Herr Jobst	...	Impressario
Hans-Ludger Schneider	...	Assessor Korti
Klaus Schwarzkopf	...	Gerloff, Philologe
Nils von der Heyde	...	Arbogast, Pressechef
Marie Luise Dutoit	...	Schweiter Aristin
Peter Staimmer	...	Perry Woodcock
Theodor Hoffa	...	Monokelträger

Also Known As:

Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed (International: English title)
The Artist in the Circus Dome: Clueless (USA)

Runtime:

Germany:104 min | USA:103 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Black and White | Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:15 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Frankfurt/Main, Hesse, Germany

Company:

Kairos-Film

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hivernam (2002)

What a waste of time!!!

This is the kind of German 1968 cinema I never really got into and never will - and this is also the kind of movie that has killed the German cinema and any kind of entertainment on German movie screens until a new wave of film makers emerged in the late eighties.

"Autorenfilmer" Alexander Kluge, part of the "intellectual" 1968 bunch of West German movie makers, tells no story but just a simple frame plot about a young woman (played by Hannelore Hoger of later "Bella Block" TV fame) who starts a new kind of politically correct circus attraction in the late sixties with the artists and animals showing the cruel sides of war and the Third Reich, but the idea fails as the artists and the audience cannot follow her visions.

It's filmed partially in b/w and consists mainly of documentary-like scenes, interviews, improvisations, artist exercises and useless repetitions and loops of people falling into the dirt, dancing without any reasons or repeating stupid sentences. A completely boredom of 115 minutes!

Maybe this was considered as "avantgarde" in 1968, but I cannot really imagine that even then anybody had fun watching this except with a gun held at his head. An unnecessary and completely uninteresting movie that made the punk movement of the late seventies more than necessary!