The new film by Fatih Akin is based on a true Hamburg serial killer in the 1970s and it’s so outrageously twisted and grindingly appalling it’s kind of amazing. The director- Fatih Akin is a real favorite of mine- his movies Head-On, The Edge Of Heaven and In The Fade are all incredible. But nothing prepared me for this wallow in the literal dregs of society. The good-looking actor Jonas Dassler transforms himself into Fritz Honka, the brutal laborer who nightly drinks at this low-life German bar- The Golden Glove- filled with alcoholic losers and the damned. The joint is like a George Grosz drawing come to life.
Honka is repulsively ugly with his broken, bulbous nose and bad teeth and he picks up overweight, drunken women at the bar, brings them home, sexually violates them and beats them to death, cutting up their bodies and cramming the parts in his wall. His apartment is a ghastly vision of pin-up pictures, dolls, endless liquor bottles and hanging room deodorants. I have to admit the film is as if Fassbinder had decided to direct a horror movie.
(In some ways, Fassbinder was somewhat involved in the story of the serial killer of young boys- Tenderness Of The Wolves, which was directed by Ulli Lommel. Fassbinder produced the film and played a small role). But that movie was like an art-film in many ways. The Golden Glove is so unrelentingly grim it begs the question- who the hell is going to see it? I have to admit there were many sequences that were so jaw-dropping and depraved I had to laugh out loud (in horror), and the film stuck with me for days afterwards. But I have a high tolerance for this kind of stuff.
The movie opens at the Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn and IFC Center on September 27th. Trust me, you’ll seriously need to take a long hot shower after you see it.