The woman opposite
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The woman opposite |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1978 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hans Noever |
| script | Hans Noever |
| production |
Molly von Fürstenberg Denyse Noever Elvira Senft |
| music | Robert Eliscu |
| camera | Walter Lassally |
| cut | Christa Wernicke |
| occupation | |
| |
The woman opposite is a 1977 German drama film directed by Hans Noever .
action
Simon Schmidt, a middle-aged gray figure, works as an insurance detective in Berlin. Over the years, his profession has determined his character, his being, and now also affects his private environment. Schmidt has become deeply suspicious of everything and everyone. When he invited his work colleague Janos Kaminski to his home as a guest one evening, where he led a modest and unexciting life with his much younger wife Gesine, he said he noticed that his wife was interested in Kaminski. Always full of doubts about his fellow human beings, he does not trust his own wife either. Schmidt begins to instrumentalize his colleague Kaminski in order to be able to be sure of Gesine's loyalty and to dispel his own doubts. Simon's growing jealousy even leads to the fact that he asks Kaminski to keep an eye on his wife while he, Simon, goes on a business trip lasting several weeks. But this business trip does not exist, it is only faked to test Gesine's steadfastness. Because Schmidt only moves into the block of flats across from his own dwelling under a false name in order to monitor Gesine's goings-on, with or without Janus Kaminski, with binoculars and wiretapping.
For Gesine, who was virtually isolated from the outside world by her fatherly husband, a time begins for the first time in which she can breathe freely. It is small escapes, small freedoms that she takes. She makes plans for mundane activities like a coffee trip followed by a fur fashion show or a shopping spree. In contrast to Simon's fears, Janus Kaminski turns out not to be Don Juan or a sensual temptation. For Gesine, activities with him are without erotic excitement: You go to a dance together in a café of the sort "Club of lonely hearts" and, as a summit of unusual diversion, eat oysters together. Schmidt meanwhile, as he is used to in his job, meticulously logs all her movements, keeps a record of every activity, no matter how unimportant. On the wall of his meager dwelling, he has immortalized his poor maxim: "To love someone, you have to be completely assured for the time being that not the slightest doubt will remain." Even the least important triviality is enough to justify an overreaction. As a prisoner of his own mistrust, he shoots Kaminski from a safe distance from his hiding place and listening post with a hunting rifle he had taken with him when he was dancing one evening after a dinner with Gesine in their married apartment. Simon Schmidt then returns to his apartment, sits down on the marriage bed and waits resignedly for the police to arrive.
Production notes
The woman opposite was created between October 10 and November 19, 1977 in Berlin. The world premiere took place on November 24, 1978, also in Berlin.
Reviews
"Noever shot his film in Berlin and had his cameraman, Oscar winner Walter Lassally (" Alexis Sorbas "), take black and white pictures of this city, in which the tenements otherwise defiantly hidden behind the sclerotic glamor facade - Sadness appears. In this way he consciously steered against the melodramatists and packed the passionate madness in a damp gray atmosphere. In spite of some unnecessarily excessive symbolisms ..., despite some lengths, he managed to make a psychologically exciting film that traces the unstoppable descent of a fear-driven security craze into self-destruction. "
"Only superficially a thriller, Hans Noever's well-photographed and dramatically convincing psychodrama tells of the aberrations of a loner who becomes a voyeur and murderer in the anonymity of a big city."
"Subtle drama about the depths of emotions."
Individual evidence
Web links
- The woman over the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The woman opposite at filmportal.de