The story of the servant
Movie | |
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German title | The story of the servant |
Original title | The Handmaid's Tale |
Country of production | Germany , USA |
original language | German , English |
Publishing year | 1990 |
length | 108 minutes |
Age rating | FSK 16 |
Rod | |
Director | Volker Schlöndorff |
script | Harold Pinter |
production | Daniel Wilson |
music | Ryuichi Sakamoto |
camera | Igor Luther |
cut | David Ray |
occupation | |
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The Handmaid's Tale is an adaptation of the novel The Handmaid's Tale ( The Handmaid's Tale ) by Margaret Atwood . In a gloomy vision of the future, part of the life of the librarian Kate is shown, who is forced to give birth to her master in a religious- fundamentalist successor state of the USA . Apart from the ending, the plot of the film is closely related to that of the novel. The film opened in German cinemas on February 15, 1990.
Location
The Republic of Gilead emerged from the crumbled United States of America. Conditions similar to civil war still prevail. Human fertility has dropped dramatically, which has prompted drastic government action. The regime is Old Testament religious, but behind the scenes there is the same bigotry as before the great upheaval.
action
It is deep winter. Kate has reached the Gilead border with her young daughter and husband. The three want to leave the state illegally, but are caught and shot at by border guards. Kate's husband is killed and Kate is arrested. The girl can escape into a thicket. At first, Kate learns nothing of the further fate of her daughter.
Kate is being tested for fertility with many other captured women, and she is tested positive. Women with negative test results are transported to the fatally contaminated "colonies" or hanged widely and displayed in public . The others are prepared for their future role as childbearing women . Everyone gets an electronically controllable bracelet. “Aunt Lydia” punishes and breaks even the slightest resistance with beating. Kate befriends Moira, who is determined to flee Gilead. At some point the women are given their blood-red costumes and a pastor gives his blessing: "I hereby consecrate you to be servants of the Lord."
Kate is assigned to an upper class family. A "Martha" receives them and gives the first instructions. Kate also gets a new name. As a “servant” in this house, her name is Offred (ie of Fred , in German “von Fred” or “des Fred”, meaning “belonging to Fred”), and Kate soon learns that the previous Offred did not have a good farewell .
The TV news reports on the deportation of “black citizens” to “Heimatland 5”. “Terrorists” were caught trying to bring women of childbearing potential across the border. “The weeds of the wicked are weeded up. We win the battle of God! "
The senior officer Fred comes home and ceremonially reads from the Old Testament ( Gen 30: 1-5 EU ). "Rachel gave birth to no children ... and she gave Jacob her maid Belaar, and her maid became pregnant."
The impregnation ceremony takes place on or in front of the marriage bed. Fred's wife Serena Joy is dressed in the azure blue of the wives, Kate wears the red of the servants. Serena holds Kate lying on her back in her lap, while Fred silently performs the sex act while standing. Kate can't completely suppress her disgust, and Serena rebukes her: "Shut up!" After the execution, Fred leaves without showing any emotion.
Kate is sent to go shopping. She meets Ofglen on the street. Kate learns that she had a direct predecessor. Ofglen seems completely adapted to her role. In conversation, she almost exclusively reproduces the phrases learned during her training. In front of the shop, the two women witness a servant being taken away to applause. The woman is finally pregnant.
Over time, Kate settles in halfway. The chauffeur Nick shows interest in her. Serena is friendly, but expressly keeps her distance. One day, Fred starts contacting Kate outside of the ceremony. He tries to flirt with her and is even polite and attentive within the scope of his knowledge.
Kate is still not pregnant after seven ceremonies. She is being brought back to the training camp because Fred is not home for a week. The doctor suspects that Fred is impotent and offers Kate immediate sexual "help". Kate refuses. Kate's friend Janine is back too. She is pregnant and conforms to the system, but her state of mind is unstable. Moira is back too. Your attempt to escape has failed.
During the night, Moira and Kate overwhelm "Aunt Lydia". Kate is careful enough not to reveal her identity, but Moira openly abuses and insults Lydia. Moira manages to escape in Lydia's clothes. Kate returns to the commandant's house.
Fred shows more and more interest in Kate, and neither Serena nor Kate agrees, Serena out of justified jealousy and Kate because she fears Serena's revenge. Kate learns that her predecessor did not get pregnant and hung herself. One day, Serena speaks to Kate in private and advises her to let Nick make her pregnant. Kate asks about the captain. "We just don't tell him anything about it." It happens, and Kate and Nick even enjoy each other. Serena is satisfied with her Offred and finds out at her request that her daughter lives in another family. However, any contact with her is prohibited.
A big celebration takes place, because Janine (Ofwarren) has her child. After the birth, only Kate takes care of the woman giving birth, while “mother” and child are the focus of interest. Ofglen reveals herself to be a member of the resistance and tells her to find out everything about her commander.
Kate starts questioning Fred. He used to be a market researcher. When the country allegedly threatened to sink into chaos - "Blacks, homos, the whole asocial pack" - he joined the radical religious who at some point established their regime in part of the country. Fred teaches her his worldview, and she lets him talk.
Great day of execution. A servant is hanged for allegedly having had illicit sex with doctors. The assembled servants get a rope in their hand and have to pull the condemned up. Then a badly beaten man is brought in who allegedly raped a pregnant woman who lost her child as a result. The servants attack him by the dozen and tear him apart. Ofglen tells Kate that the man was really a political prisoner. While the gathering disperses, a car bomb explodes. The resister tells Kate to be ready to kill the commander if necessary.
Fred brought Kate an evening dress and everything that goes with it. Kate suspects what Fred is up to, but she has had to do without even the smallest convenience for so long that she lets herself be seduced into a little luxury. He drives her to a nightclub, where half-naked women and men in sexy underwear are serving alcohol. Moira is also among the dancers. Kate follows her to the bathroom. "You look like the whore of Babylon." The two hug each other. Moira was betrayed, picked up at the border and tortured. Moira preferred working in the nightclub to the colonies because the liquor and drugs are free. “There are a lot of women here. That's something, ”says the lesbian Moira. Kate discovers that Moira's hands are crippled. “Yes, they couldn't help it. You know we don't need hands and feet for our purposes. "
Kate and Fred dance to melancholy music. He is in love or at least pretends to be, brings her to a room and has sexual intercourse with her - for the first time outside of the ceremony. Kate accepts it with a stone face.
Nick brings the couple home. He later blames Kate. She thinks she has no choice because she is pregnant. She does not want to leave the child to Fred, but rather to flee across the border with Nick.
Kate finds a jackknife in her room and a piece of paper with a time ("Tomorrow evening, 10 o'clock"). When Kate wants to approach Ofglen on the street about the knife, she realizes just in time that she has a new Ofglen in front of her.
Serena is beside herself. She found Fred's presents at Kate's. On the television news, Fred brags about the successes in clearing the country of scum.
Kate broods half the night. Commandant Fred is finally coming home. Kate goes to his room around 10 a.m. unsolicited and asks for help. Fred confessed to his wife's misstep. "I had no other choice." He thanks Kate with well-chosen words. She gave him a lot of strength, but he cannot or does not want to help her. Kate is disgusted with his hypocrisy. When he pulls her close for a kiss, she cuts his carotid artery and throat with the jackknife. Both fall to the ground, Kate flees. Fred stays in shock and bleeds to death. Kate runs into two gunmen and is led away. A little later, Serena finds her dead husband. Nick orders Kate to be taken away. At first she thinks he is doing common cause with the militias, but then she realizes that she is facing resistance. Kate is taken away, while Nick stays behind to continue fighting for the Resistance and to try to free Kate's daughter.
Further successes of the regime are announced on the television news. The dead commandant's last interview is broadcast again.
Kate now lives in a trailer in the mountains. She is occasionally cared for and waiting for her second child to be born. She receives messages from Nick sporadically and is confident that one day she will also see her daughter again. "And she will remember me."
Remarks
The land of Gilead is mentioned in the Old Testament . The names of the maidservants are derived from the first names of their masters: "Offred" = "(Handmaid) of Fred", as well as "of Warren" and "of Glenn".
The film was shown as an official competition entry at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival in 1990 and was partially booed in the Zoo-Palast . Most of the professional criticism reacted negatively. Schlöndorff himself said:
“I put in this contract work to make money. Not a very good idea, as it turned out, because this story of the servant wasn't my thing, despite Pinter and Duvall. "
Awards
- The film won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Film in 1991 .
- Natasha Richardson won an Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress in 1991 .
Reviews
Hellmuth Karasek wrote in his 1990 review in Spiegel about the film adaptation of the novel: “Here, in the relentless observation of secret and uncanny connections, the cool and comical tension of this film arises. Behind the surface of a 'Brave New World', the strange conditions under which sexual coexistence takes place in the prosperous reserves of the American Way of Life become visible. ”The film“ only seems to direct its gaze towards a far future. If you want to see, it won't be difficult to take a look at the prevailing conditions today. "
prisma-online : “Volker Schlöndorff staged Margaret Atwood's bestseller in an emphatically sterile and oppressive atmosphere. But he approaches the subject too timidly that not only US critic Roger Ebert asked himself in the end what the film actually wanted to tell us. "
literature
- Max Bracht: "Handmade Tales" - Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale in production-oriented foreign language lessons. Neusprachliche Mitteilungen 52.4 (1999), pp. 229-238. ISSN 0028-3983 .
- Annette Greif: Atwood, Pinter, Schlöndorff: The Handmaid's Tale - Intermedial. A cognitive-hermeneutical investigation of the cinematic literature adaptation . University and State Library of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 2017.
- Elisabeth Kraus: Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Volker Schlöndorff's film The Handmaid's Story (1989). Paris / Milan / Graz: Feminist concepts in development. Edited by d. Project group for the interdisciplinary women's studies at the University of Graz. Wiener Frauenverlag, Vienna 1991, pp. 187-200.
- Hans-Bernhard Moeller and George Lellis: Volker Schlöndorff's films: literary adaptations, politics and the "cinema-fair". Updated and expanded first German edition, Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2011. Chapter: “The story of the servant”, pp. 251–266. ISBN 978-3-940384-31-7 .
- Reingard M. Nischik: Engendering genre. The Works of Margaret Atwood. University of Ottawa Press, Ottawa: 2009. Chapter 5: How Atwood Fared in Hollywood - Atwood and Film (Esp. The Handmaid's Tale ), pp. 131-167. ISBN 978-0-7766-0724-5 .
Web links
- The Handmaid's Tale in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for The Handmaid's Story . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2009 (PDF; test number: 63 359 V / DVD / UMD).
- ↑ Thilo Wydra : Volker Schlöndorff and his films . Heyne Verlag , Munich 1998, ISBN 3-453-13228-9 , p. 183 .
- ↑ A look into future happiness . In: Der Spiegel , February 12, 1990. Retrieved October 2, 2013.