Dorothea's Rache (1974) User Reviews

DOROTHEA'S REVENGE (Peter Fleischmann, 1974) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 20 September 2011]

The 1970s saw a virtual explosion in uninhibited depictions of sexuality on celluloid particularly in Europe which belie their age when watched today; this saw the careers of exploitation film-makers like Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin blossom but also that of artier directors like Walerian Borowczyk getting stranded in sleaze once he had a significant commercial success in this vein! As often happens with cinematic trends, it is not long before they get sent up and this obscure German film is one such spoof. The film combines an air of theatricality (characters address the camera directly at times – right from the very opening scene), cine-verite' (students are shooting "The Lexicon of Love", a part-lecture by a masked 'professor' and part re-enactment of his bizarre teachings) and surreal fantasy sequences (the titular character – through whose eyes we follow the freewheeling, weird and often unpleasant narrative – is introduced by telling her parents that she had just been raped by an alien and produces a smoking meteorite to prove it, and later even a blond Jesus Christ pays her an unheralded visit to offer some controversial advice to sleep with "children and fools" which she proceeds to do instantly with a shoeshine boy and a retarded flasher!).

Dorothea's adventures in Sleazeland take her to try out group sex (a friend of hers is ostensibly invited for a photo session and when she calls at the hotel room to offer her support, she gets gang-banged by a mature trio of perverts whom she subsequently interviews while hiding their identities since some of them are married), prostitution (she follows a streetwalking friend as she plies her trade and gets beaten by her very first client – a middle-aged man – for causing him to ejaculate prematurely) and domination (the film's most outrageous sequence has a lesbian madam enjoying Dorothea's body; naked old men walking around in cages; and even a one-legged, bearded man stretched across a crucifix)! While the crazy song-fuelled imagery (including the intermittent display of laughing devices recorded and mass-produced by Dorothea's father) elicits the occasional laugh, the proliferation of the sordid details – especially the unabashed flailing of male genitalia – proves hard to take at times. Besides, for being a comedy and a celebration of free love, it does not flinch from showing the destructive effect this lifestyle has on the more sensitive souls who come in contact with it (namely a college professor infatuated with Dorothea who hangs himself after one rejection too many). While the presence of distinguished screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere may seem appropriate given the thematic similarities with Luis Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR (1967), one has to wonder what the Spanish film-maker made of this film in view of his avowed revulsion towards graphic sexuality on film! The German director of DOROTHEA'S REVENGE is not a name that rings many bells, but it seems that Fleischmann hit it well with Carriere since he requested the latter's writing services again for his next film – a French thriller entitled LA FAILLE aka WEAK SPOT (1975) starring Bunuel regular Michel Piccoli, Ugo Tognazzi, Mario Adorf and Adriana Asti (who had just appeared in the latest Bunuel-Carriere collaboration i.e. 1974's THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY)!

Well, it's certainly different

[lazarillo · 5 November 2009]

What to say about this? Well, it's kind of like Dusan Maneshevev's "Sweet Movie", but more exploitative and a little less arty. It also kind of resembles one of those late 60's Swedish movies like "I Am Curious--Yellow" where a young woman "explores her sexuality" (i.e, casually screws pretty much everybody), but whereas those movies were serious more or less, this movie has a wry, subversive sense of humor. Being German, it also of course resembles the then-popular "Schulmadchen Report" films, but it is far more bizarre than titillating.

Dorothea is a 17-year-old girl, who when we first see her, looks very disheveled, is holding a strange, smoking object, and announces to her parents that she's just been raped by aliens (but they are only concerned about whether "the pill" would be effective against such a sexual encounter). Next she participates with her friends in strange sex film they are making. Her father owns a novelty factory and she befriends one of his female employees, who has an appointment with a seedy photographer to take some "modeling pictures". She tries to defend her new friend's virtue against the photographer, but doesn't do a very good job--she instead gets gang-banged by him and two of his sweaty, overweight friends. Afterward, she pulls out a film camera and "interviews" the three men. They all sit through the interview, but insist on covering their faces with towels (but unfortunately not the rest of their grotesque naked bodies). Next she finds out that a teacher who was in love with her has committed suicide, so she responds by becoming a prostitute. That doesn't go too well, so she becomes a dominatrix instead where she runs across masochistic, derelict Christ figure. . .

I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a sexploitation movie, but it doesn't really work as such. The actress playing "Dorothea" has a nice body, but she's not exactly a raving beauty. And there is A LOT of very unappealing male nudity. I just can't imagine ANYONE in any time or place draining their dragons to sex scenes involving all these fat, pale, wrinkly-assed German guys. Also, despite the title, I'm not sure at exactly what point "Dorothea" gets revenge. But, oh well, if you just want to see something different. . .

Felt not much different than School Girl Report for me (Schulmädchenreport)

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 29 June 2017]

"Dorothea's Rache" or "Dorothea's Revenge" is a West German / French co-production from 1974, so this one is already way over 40 years old and it was directed and written by Peter Fleischmann, one of his more known works, but probably not his most known. He collaborated with Oscar winner Jean-Claude Carrière on the script and that's probably the French component. The title character is played by Anna Henkel, who went on to marry famous German musician (and actor) Herbert Grönemeyer before dying from cancer at the age of 45 only. So yeah, from the title you can already see what I think of her work here and what I think about the film in general. The comedy here was more awkward than entertaining and with this I am actually referring mostly to the scenes when some wacky scientist with a bizarre mask explains male and female sexuality as if he was some horny old guy with naked young men and women standing next to him and serving as exhibits for his elaborations. Also these scenes felt like they had nothing to do with the story at all and they were probably intended to keep this film from becoming too serious.

Anyway, the center of the action here is Dorothea, a teenager struggling with age and life in general and also with her parents and as a consequence she gets deeper and deeper into the abyss of wild and unrestrained sex, especially with considerably older men. But there are many other women and men in here who randomly have sex and eventually, at the very end, it all just becomes some huge orgy. The film's story-telling and authenticity got flushed down the toilet a long time before that already. Shockingly bad and judging from the IMDb rating I definitely expected something better. But the plot is just ridiculous and the directions the film is taking don't make sense at all most of the time. The performances aren't better and the ways in which the lead actress talks to audiences on several occasions are not half as effective as they want them to be. The sexual revolution was going strong in Germany back then and while films like this one here may have contributed at least as much as the ones I mentioned in the title of my review, I must say that I see no cinematic quality, let alone creativity, in this work. I highly recommend you watch something else. It's nothing at all about revenge in an interesting manner. It is softcore porn. Nothing beyond that. Don't be tricked into believing otherwise because of the names Fleischmann, Carrière and Grönemeyer attached to this project.

Weird ...

[Wetbones · 10/10 · 5 December 2003]

DOROTHEAS RACHE begins with the characters talking directly to the camera and thus us, the viewers. But this is only one of the many, many pleasantly weird things you'll discover when watching this film. Right at the beginning we learn that Dorothea, who introduces herself as a 17 year old girl, has just made love to a Martian. And she even has a groovy, smoking meteorite to prove it. The parents are concerned if the pill will work in the case of interstellar sex ... The rest of the film follows Dorothea as she tries to learn more about love (both emotionally and physically) and ends up being abused again and again by an amazing parade of creeps and freaks before Jesus Christ himself pops up to give her some good advice ... Did I mention that this film is weird? The thing that cracked me up the most was Dorothea's father who runs a firm that produces "laughing bags". That's some kind of small mechanism that's in a metal box and is then put into a bag. When you shake the bag you are treated to hysterical laughter ... Awesome, just awesome! If only contemporary German cinema were as fascinating as this 1972 film ...

Dosto-Sado-Maso-Jewski

[Thorsten_B · 10/10 · 22 August 2007]

Though primarily intended to be a parody on the then-notorious wave of German sex-films that claim to be "scientifically" accurate, "Dorotheas Rache" won a price as best picture of 1974. And if that wasn't good enough, the price is the Prix de Group Panic, donated by the brilliant cinematic trio infernal consisting of playwright/artist Roland Topor (best known to film lovers as the author who provided the story for Roman Polanskis "Le Tenant"), neo-surrealistic director Fernando Arrabal ("Viva la Muerte") and multi-talented filmmaker-genius Alejandro Jodorowsky ("El Topo"). The three applauded "Dorothea" as a masterpiece of the new, larger-than-life, politically reflective film of the post-68 years. It offers, they stated, thought-provocation in a daring, symbolist manner that resembles a mix-up of Pasolini and Breton. And indeed, director Peter Fleischmann and fellow screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière (long-time collaborator of Luis Bunuel) have gone to the limits with this passion of a young girl in search for the meaning of love. Almost all the actors are non-professionals from the sinister underworld of St. Pauli, Hamburg. Anna Henkel – who later starred in Bernardo Bertoluccis "1900" and still later married famous German pop singer Herbert Grönemeyer, but tragically died of cancer at a young age – is brilliant as the 17-year old protagonist on her journey through darkness, weirdness, obscurity and obscenity. While trying to find out about the nature of love and the magnetic force between the sexes, she stumbles across pornographers, prostitutes and dominatrices, all of them deliberately depicted not as bizarre caricatures, and all of them behaving as if their home ground were the suburbs of a sex-loaded hellfire. Eventually, Dorothea's trip turns out to be a rite of passage in the midst of a capitalistic system. As first, there's her parental background: Her father owns a factory that produces comedy articles (such as jewel cases that provide laughter when opened), her mother is as average and boring as a mother can be – but only at first sight. Dorothea slowly evades from this surrounding into unknown territory when a friend, with whom she is making a hilariously absurd 8mm film called "Encyclopedia of Love" (devoted to the weirdest sexual practices you have ever been advised to re-enact) starts posing for pornographic pictures and is sexually abused during the first session. Both disgusted and attracted at the same time, and being broad-minded as can be, Dorothea starts trying it out herself. It's all done for her quest for the meaning of love in a world of exploitation, humiliation and perversity. Stations of Dorotheas passion include her being laid by three old, very unattractive men (full frontal nudity here, even "fuller" than usual!), with the girl surprising the men by turning the situation around. Subsequently there are her lesbian experiences with a domina (among whose clients is a single-legged masochist that likes to be crucified), her (harshly punished) attempt to be a nice to an unloved, frustrated man even prostitutes don't want as a customer, her idea to comfort her fathers economical problems with incest, and a personal encounter with Jesus who advises Dorothea to have sex with the mad and the lunatic to become happy… It sounds like a porn-revue from the asylum, and in some way, it is. But it's also an astonishing insight, a hallucinating voyage seen through the eyes of an, after all, innocent girl that tries to understand why things are the way they are. She keeps her innocence throughout her experiences – almost, at all (there's one "guilt" appearing out of the middle all those unredeemed sins). German writer Martin Walser called it a film in "Dosto-Sado-Maso-Jewski"-qualities when it came out, newspapers spoke of a "moralistic fable", of "Sex with a slice of Mao", and the film was nicknamed the "Maria Magdalena of the red-light district" or "Alice in Sexland". Views may vary, but there's no doubt "Dorotheas Rache" is an amour fou with erotic tension being the prime subject of a surrealistic roller-coaster ride.