Rating: B
Dir: Fatih Akin
Star: Jonas Dassler, Margarethe Tiesel, Katja Studt, Dirk Böhling
a.k.a. Der Goldene Handschuh
This one needs to come with a bottle of Purel and some moist towelettes. Because I don’t recall a grubbier movie. In the serial killer sub-genre, Henry was always the standard there. But I think there may be a new psychopath in town, and his name is Fritz Honka. He operated in the red-light district of Hamburg during the first half of the seventies, preying on elderly prostitutes. He strangled them, dismembering their corpses, and often hiding them around his attic apartment. He was eventually caught after a fire led to his arrest, and spent fifteen years in the loony bin, but died a free man, five years after being released.
This depicts the above in all its sordid details, down to the Magic Tree air fresheners with which Honka festooned his apartment, to cover up the smell. It begins with the aftermath of his first murder, as he drags the body about, before eventually deciding to saw it up. Like just about everyone else, Honka is homely to an almost caricature degree. Dassler, a good decade younger and a good-looking guy, is buried under a mass of prosthetics, but the ugliness on the outside pales in comparison to the vileness of his personality. He spends his free time hanging out in the pub of the title with society’s other dregs. One fellow drinker is casually referred to as SS Nobert, in honour of his wartime service.
Fritz picks up old vagrants and whores – who are no beauty pageant winners either – luring them back to his filthy, porn-decorated flat with the promise of free booze. If things go wrong… well, there isn’t a further date. There’s always room for some more body parts in the walls. It’s a scenario which feels not dissimilar to British serial killer Dennis Nilsen, as depicted in Cold Light of Day. That’s a fucking Disney movie compared to this, which sets its stall out with the opening sequence described above, and there is very little let-up the rest of the way. Black humour is the closest you’ll get to a respite, such as one potential victim smearing mustard on the sleeping Honka’s dick, as revenge for his abuse.
You just know Honka’s efforts to stay on the wagon are doomed, and there are no likeable characters here at all. None. Zero. I can see why some reviewers were appalled, saying things about it such as, “one of the most vile serial killer movies ever made.” Well, I think they were appalled: I’d not argue, but could see myself using the same phrase to a rather different end. For I would argue that this is how films should depict serial killers: in a way prompting revulsion and a strong desire for a wire scrubbing-brush. Though personally, the worst thing might have been the German language version of Seasons in the Sun which plays over the end credits. After almost two hours of wallowing in depravity, it was nice to realize I still have limits.