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Tenderness of the Wolves More at IMDbPro »Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe (original title)
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| Index | 17 reviews in total |
23 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
The Cinema of Ulli Lommel: A creepy serial killer film., 12 November 2003
Author:
Miyagis_Sweaty_wifebeater (sirjosephu@aol.com) from Sacramento, CA
Tenderness of the Wolf (1973) is an excellent film about a serial
killer living in war torn Germany. Fritz Haarman was a pedophile
psychopath who lived during WWI Germany (the time period in the movie
was moved up to WWII). Ulli Lommel's style of directing was a nod to
Fritz Lang and the other German expressionist filmmakers of the the
20's and 30's. Beware, I must warn you that this film has some strong
adult content matter that most people will find repulsing. But those
who are open minded will find this movie an interesting and honest
portrait of a madman. Lommel and Kurt Raab (who also wrote the
screenplay) portray Fritz Haarman as a tortured soul who can never
truly express himself or convey his emotions. In his twisted mind he
sees no harm in what he does. Several Fassbinder stock players have
supporting and minor roles in this picture including Fassbinder (he
cameos as a real shady slug). Kurt Raab does an excellent character
study of one of Germany's most notorious serial killers.
Highly recommended (if you can stomach the content).
18 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Fascinating and eerie!, 2 June 2002
Author:
shaadowlove from Denver, CO USA
This movie was one of the most interesting experiences that I
have
ever had! On one hand, it made me cringe. (The graphic sex was
a
surprise; I expected the gore.)On the other hand, it was
beautiful
and eerie. Great atmosphere... dark and smoky. Full of mystery
and
forbidden pleasures... cannibalism, vampirism, underage sex,
corruption... the list goes on and on.
Kurt Raab was frightening as Fritz Haarman: child molester,
vampire,
cannibal and black market salesman. He lures young boys off of
the
street and takes them back to his small, dingy apartment. Once
there, he molests them (before, and sometimes after he kills
them)
murders them in cold blood and processes their carcasses to sell
as
meat in this post-WW2 drama. Both sexy and revolting, Raab
draws
the viewer into his dark, tortured psyche without garnering
any
sympathy for his dilemma. He is in one word, depraved.
Fritz' neighbor is hearing strange chopping noises in the
night---
she does not like his way of bringing strange boys to the
apartment.
Suspicious, she contacts the police, who basically patronize
her,
until the murders become so numerous that they are impossible
to
ignore any longer.
Go see this film. It is a truly disturbing experience.
18 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Ulli Lommel's disturbing shocker!, 14 June 2002
Author:
HumanoidOfFlesh from Chyby, Poland
Fritz Haarman-the infamous "Butcher of Hanover" was one of the worst serial killers in the recent history.During five years(1919-1924)with the help of his homosexual partner Hans Grans he butchered nearly fifty youths.Their method was always the same:they enticed a youth from railway station back to Haarman's room,Haarman killed him(according to his account by biting his throat)and the boy's body was dismembered and sold as meat.His clothes were sold,and the useless(i.e. uneatable)body parts were thrown into the river Leine.Haarman was sentenced to death,Grans to twelve years in jail.Ulli Lommel's "The Tenderness of Wolves" is a realistic portrayal of this notorious killer.It's brilliantly acted,psychologically disturbing and almost completely non-violent.Definitely a must-see!
11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Fritz Haarmann and Hans Beckert, 8 April 2009
Author:
hasosch from United States
Hans Beckert in "M" (1931) and Fritz Haarmann in "Die Zärtlichkeit Der
Wölfe" (1973): Both films are based on the true story of the German
series killer Fritz Haarmann (1879-1925).
Comparing the two films, one feels the 40 years that lie between them.
Peter Lorre, the Beckert of M., is not shown killing his victims. There
is no blood, and the story is told as if we would gather it by change
through rumors in the street and newspaper reports. On the other side,
the magnificent actor Kurt Raab as Haarmann: We see how he picks his
victims up - exclusively good-looking young boys. In "M", we are only
told about missing little girls - perhaps the combination of series
killer and homosexual would have been too much for the audience then.
"Tenderness of the Wolves" is also in general much closer to the
original Haarmann story - f.ex., when we see how Fritz sells sausages
that he had made from the meat of his victims (Haarmann owned a short
time a butcher store.) We see how Fritz lives, drinks and sleeps with
his victims, and kills them. We also see him getting rid of their
corpses in huge plastic bags which he sinks in the river. Nothing at
all about the everyday's life of Hans Beckert: All we see him do, is
walking up and then down the streets, sometimes visiting an inn for a
schnapps. From his apartment that the police enters twice, we see his
one table, nothing more. In the case of Fritz, we even meet his nosy
and gossipy neighbors. So, when Beckert finally get caught by the horde
of the mob, Lorre had to compensate all that what the director did not
show us, so that we could not make ourselves a picture about Beckert,
the human being. Therefore, Lorre is not allowed to just break together
and admit his murders, but he is forced to cry also the motivations of
his deeds into the jury. For me, what he is doing, is not convincing.
It may have been more shocking in 1931 as it is now, but I doubt that,
too. - On the other side, Kurt Raab alias Fritz was allowed to
broadcast all his lust that he had with his boys, from the seduction
via the intercourse up to his climax: the lethal bite in the neck. At
the end, Fritz will say: "I give my life back in God's hands ... but I
had them all, the handsomest of the handsomest". We feel his lust and
believe him - because he had a chance to show it during the movie, we
are his witnesses. But unfortunately nothing like that in M., so that
Lorre's Beckert stays an isolated and widely artificially constructed
figure, not a human, but a silhouette. On the other side Raab's
Haarmann, played by the self-confessed pedophile homosexual Raab: There
are moments in the movie where one trembles, if the actor has himself
really under control - so good is his acting.
8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Great horror/cannibalism movie by the Fassbinder crew., 9 September 1999
Author:
Mithras-4 from Germany
This movie was shot in only 23 days at a theatre in Düsseldorf. It´s about a
gay murderer who kills lots of young boys and then butchers them in order to
eat ´em with his friends.-
Sounds scary, but it´s incredible how the film crew created an stunning
atmosphere with just a very low budget. Fassbinder couldn´t direct because
he did other projects, so crew member and actor Uli Lommel did the job. Many
Fassbinder friends join the movie. See this unusual one!
9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Deeply disturbing horror/drama masterpiece, 1 July 2009
Author:
Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls
Back in the early 70's, when his name wasn't yet a synonym for
insufferably crappy hand-held camera horror stuff, Ulli Lommel actually
was quite the promising and visionary young (barely 29 years old)
director in his home country Germany. The powerful impact of "The
Tenderness of Wolves" alone is already more than enough evidence to
back up this statement. This is a thoroughly unsettling and disturbing
drama/horror hybrid based on the true facts in the case of one of the
most notorious European criminal figures of the previous century. Fritz
Haarmann was a German pedophile and serial killer of young adolescent
males during the Interbellum period and made nearly 30 victims in only
five years of time. Haarmann makes his money by trades food and goods
on the black market that he himself falsely confiscated by pretending
to be a policeman. This is also how he picks up young lads in the train
station and lures them to his apartment loft. Uncle Fritz probes for
homeless boys and eventually murders them by biting their throats;
which gave him the nickname "The Vampire of Hanover". The atrocities
became even more inhuman when Fritz, together with his
lover/partner-in-crime Hans Grans, sold the hacked up flesh of the
victims on the black market. "The Tenderness of Wolves" is definitely
not an overly graphical or tasteless film, but the subject matter is
sickening and the whole portrayal of pedophilia is beyond disturbing.
Haarmann pretty openly declares his affection for young boys and his
entire surrounding either deliberately ignores this or even considers
it to be the most common thing in the world. Only his neighbor from the
apartment below suspects his psychopathic tendencies and attempts to
alert the authorities, but that fails as Haarmann actually had
connections with the police where he worked as a "rat".
The sequences in which Haarmann is intimate with his victims are
extremely discomforting, but at the same time they make the film all
the more powerful and hauntingly realistic. It seems unthinkable in
this modern day and age, but it was so easy for twisted perverts to
pick up unsuspecting and youthful victims. Especially in times of
poverty and despair, like the case in Germany between the two World
Wars. Every time Haarmann comes near a boy, you can already assume the
poor kid's fate is sealed, like the runaway drifter at the railway
station or the boy at the carnival. Whenever he approaches a kid, your
skin is guaranteed to crawl, because his voice is so stern and
despicable. "The Tenderness of Wolves" also benefices from a more than
decent re-creation of the depressing era and – of course – the
incredibly brilliant and courageous performance of lead actor/writer
Kurt Raab. He truly depicts Fritz Haarmann exactly like an emotionless
and depraved monster ought to be depicted. This certainly isn't a film
that is suitable for all tastes (and even the most hardened cult
fanatics need to feel in a certain state of mind to watch it), but it's
undeniably a unique experience and easily one of the top five most
unpleasant yet fascinating things I ever watched. Moreover, after
witnessing the unforgettable tour-de-force accomplishment that is "The
Tenderness of Wolves", it's all the more difficult to accept that Ulli
Lommel is nowadays directing junk entitled "Zombie Nation", "Diary of a
Cannibal" or "BTK Killer".
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Not intended as a documentary..., 17 June 2006
Author:
(k.b.ledford@gmail.com) from United States
I found this film to be more interesting than I expected. The film, to me, is clearly not meant to be a historic film about Fritz Haarmann. There is a line in the film that makes a reference to the Nazi's (their rise to power wasn't until nine years after Haarmann's execution) and how difficult life is for everyone in post-war Germany. The character of Fritz Haarmann was used as a metaphor for the German people "cannabalizing" each other just to survive. The costumes, language, and vehicles also seemed to be of a later decade. Much like Werner Herzog's "The Enegma of Kaspar Hauser", "Tenderness of the Wolves" uses a real historical figure (taken with some liberties) as a criticism of society as a whole. Having said that, the film is not particularly outstanding in any way. The concept is interesting, and contains the leading actors of Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul", as well as Fissbinder himself. Still, I would have to say the film is only slightly above average; both as a Fassbinder film and the German New Wave.
7 out of 11 people found the following review useful:
A Very Weird German Movie, 28 November 2005, 13 December 2009
Author:
Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In 1925, in Germany, Fritz Haarmann (Kurt Raab) is a homosexual, thief
and sneak, having a special license from the police. He sells meat in
the black market. He also kills boys and young men, drinking their
bloods, quarter-sewing their bodies and throwing away the parts in a
river. Certainly what he sells in the black market is human meat.
This movie is very weird. The period (1925) is only defined in the last
scene, and apparently it is based on a true story. In Brazil, the VHS
is spoken in Italian having delay in the subtitles in Portuguese. My
vote is six.
Title (Brazil): 'O Delírio Assassino em Adolfo e Marlene' ('The
Assassination Delirium in Adolf and Marlene')
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A gorgeous film on a disturbing subject, 30 December 2001
Author:
bcptn (bcptn@attbi.com) from Chicago, IL
This film brilliantly captures the decay, both physical and moral, of
post-WWI Germany. The movie explores 2 key questions - Why did Fritz
Haarman
brutally murder young men, and perhaps more importantly, why was he allowed
to get away with it for so long?
Kurt Raab is terrific is Haarman, but deserves praise as well for his set
decoration. The movie is filled with rich colors and textures and often
breath-taking locations. Director Ulli Lommel creates a creepy atmosphere
that's hard to look away from.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
Masterpiece, 29 March 2010
Author:
normrinks from United States
This is a true masterpiece. A classic Produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who also plays a small role, and directed by Cult Filmmaker Ulli Lommel. It stars legendary Kurt Raab and it reminds you of Fritz Lang's masterpiece "M". Even though it is 37 years old, it feels like it was made yesterday. The camera work, the music, the acting, the directing, the lighting, the music, it's all as good as it gets! Based on a true crime story, it's about serial killer Fritz Haarmann, who murdered some 40 kids back around WWII in Germany. The mood, the settings, the whole feel of the film is so extraordinary, it keeps you glued to the screen from the first minute. And it's actually as good as the best Fassbinder films I have seen. I read a review back in the 70s by Vincent Canby in the New York Times, who loved this film and I saw it back then at a cinema in Manhattan, but this DVD I just screened is so cool so wonderful, this film is on my all time top ten list.
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