Feme (1927)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Feme |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1927 |
| length | approx. 103 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Richard Oswald |
| script |
Herbert Juttke Georg C. Klaren |
| production | Richard Oswald for Matador-Film GmbH |
| music | Walter Ulfig (Berlin performance) |
| camera | Ewald Daub |
| occupation | |
| |
Feme is a German silent film drama from 1927 directed by Richard Oswald based on a novel by Vicki Baum .
action
A right-wing extremist political organization called “Vereinigung Treue” is looking for contact with an easily seduced man whom it finds in Joachim Burthe. The leader of this deeply democratic group, the characterless and unscrupulous Gregor von Askanius, whispers to the fanatical student who is looking for orientation that it is finally time to deal the fatal blow to the corrupt system and its representatives. Burthe is very receptive to the messages of the former officer Askanius and is ready to assassinate a representative of this hated, liberal political caste, a minister. He does the deed.
Burthe does not realize that he was just a stupid, easily influenced tool of sinister and unscrupulous fellow murderers. After the attack, his new “friends” drop him like a hot potato and he wanders through the city, pursued by the police. He finally found shelter in a mental hospital. Unrecognized, he can take up a job as a gardener there. When the government tracks him down there, Burthe finds a helper in the clinic's benevolent chief doctor. Through his influence and after an insightful encounter with the minister's forgiving mother, the fugitive criminal realizes the horror of his deed. Burthe, tormented by the knowledge that he has killed a righteous person, soon sees no other way out than to atone for his murder with his own death and finally kills himself.
Production notes
Feme was created between May 28 and June 15, 1927 in the Efa-Atelier, Berlin. The seven-act film premiered on August 23, 1927 in Berlin's Beba-Palast Attrium. The film, which was banned from young people, was rated “artistic”.
The film followed a illustrated novel by Vicki Baums published by Ullstein-Verlag , in which the author addressed a story of an assassination. In doing so, Baum oriented himself on the murder of the liberal politician and German Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau by right-wing extremist perpetrators in 1922 .
The film structures are by Gustav A. Knauer , Walter Lichtenstein took care of the still photos.
Political reactions
Despite the careful implementation of the material, Oswald's implementation attracted massive attacks from the political extreme right (NSDAP).
Artistic classification
“The title is not misleading, but it does not represent the real interest in this very topical subject in the mid-1920s. The fememord, the killing of a minister by a fanatical student who was seduced by the charismatic leader of a folk "loyalty association", is only the starting point. Rudolf Forster gives the latter with a seductive demonic. But Feme soon leaves the current socio-political occasion in order to turn to the inner state of the perpetrator, played by Oswald's preferred actor of the time, Hans Stüwe. He succeeds in showing this man's psychological unhousing and vulnerability. It is he himself who cannot forgive himself for the act, not even after the victim's mother has forgiven him. He will perish from this inner conflict. He finally commits feme on himself. The film, based on the novel by Vicki Baum, is above all a discussion of male distress due to the social upheavals of the post-war period. It forms the breeding ground on which National Socialist propaganda could thrive. "
Web links
- Feme in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Feme at filmportal.de