The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.
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Honest about his influences, he cites soft-core Europorn from the ’60s and ’70s as inspiration for this oddly affecting tale, hat-tipping such films as Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Jess Franco’s A Virgin Among the Living Dead.
Duke operates on dream logic from the start – references abound to Jess Franco and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, to give you an idea of what universe we’re in – but the third act sees the visual motifs (panties, insects, the trunk) emphasized, and the character’s anxieties externalized, by way of Brakhage-esque experimental sequences.
Strongly influenced by Les Biches (1968), it’s as potentially as tragic as The Killing of Sister George (1968) and The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972).
Luca also wants to tick all the boxes by casting cult stars as some of the maleficent mob: Renée Soutendijk from Paul Verhoeven’s The 4th Man is in there, while Ingrid Caven, former wife and muse of late great German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder, hopefully encourages oh-so-lofty comparisons between this and pics like The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant and (fittingly) Fear Eats The Soul.
Its close quarters call to mind cinema in enclosed spaces like Woody Allen’s terminally-solemn Interiors or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic dramas Martha and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.
Suddenly, men start noticing her, and before long, she’s even caught the attention of her glamorous boss, Avery LeClaire (Michelle Williams), who speaks in a ridiculously breathy high-pitched voice and dresses like a refugee from The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant .
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Funny Face is a gold standard of movies about fashion, but technically so is The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant , and so is the Zoolander franchise.