It's the directorial debut of Tom Tykwer and he knows how to drag us into his world. "Deadly Maria" is instantly mesmerizing with its strident horror film music and its surreal cinematography. Tykwer focuses on the details. He shows us clocks, an ink pen, the ear of the female protagonist, all in close up shots to control our attention heavily. Nina Petri, who plays the main character Maria, lets us share her thought in poetic offscreen-monologues. It's an oppressive and nightmarish storytelling in which we wait for the outburst of Maria.
11 Reviews
Greatly filmed!
030-Kino.de-230 September 1998
The first work of Tom Tykwer shows several qualities that have been brought to perfection in "Lola rennt" ("Run Lola Run"). There are especially the great camera work and the intelligent editing. Unfortunately the script is somewhat protracted now and then.
Acting and atmosphere make it work
Horst_In_Translation20 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Die tödliche Maria" or "Deadly Maria" is a German(-language) film from 1993, so this one will have its 25th anniversary two years from now. The fact that it is more known than most other German works from around that time is probably due to this one being directed by Tom Tykwer ("Run Lola Run"), possibly Germany's most known director in Hollywood right now as he has worked with Tom Hanks on several occasions in recent years, which says a lot about his popularity. But Hanks of course does not appear in this film that runs for slightly over 100 minutes. The title character is played by Nina Petri (and two younger actresses). Also in the cast are known names like Bierbichler, Franke and Król. And even if the movie was ignored by the German Film Awards, it received a great deal of awards recognition during all kinds of other ceremonies. This was Tykwer's first full feature film, so you could certainly call it a breakthrough for him, even if it is not among his most known works today at all, rather among his least known works.
The story is about a pretty disturbed woman, but the men in her life aren't really any better and in the end catastrophe is inevitable. Not just for Maria. Still, a happy end and a moment of harmony are in the books at the very end for the title character. As a whole, I think the film was okay in terms of the story and plot, but nothing really too memorable which is why I cannot give it a better rating than 6 out of 10. However, all the actors in here definitely elevated the material by a lot and they were all good casting decisions I believe as they really made the characters work and it was easy to care about them and wonder what would happen to them. Thumbs up for that. Another thumbs-up for the atmospheric touch. Tykwer's gloomy take on the whole thing in terms of colors, sets and cinematography made this an unpleasant watch which was actually not just pleasant, but really perfect in connection to the story we get to witness. Overall, I applaud Tykwer for what he has come up with here and while I am a lot more critical in terms of his more recent work, I must say this one here (even if it is mostly thanks to the actors) is a pretty strong achievement for a rookie filmmaker. I recommend you to check it out and I personally even like it more than "Lola rennt". It just feels more authentic in terms of the whole premise of a young female with deep psychological troubles inside of her.
The story is about a pretty disturbed woman, but the men in her life aren't really any better and in the end catastrophe is inevitable. Not just for Maria. Still, a happy end and a moment of harmony are in the books at the very end for the title character. As a whole, I think the film was okay in terms of the story and plot, but nothing really too memorable which is why I cannot give it a better rating than 6 out of 10. However, all the actors in here definitely elevated the material by a lot and they were all good casting decisions I believe as they really made the characters work and it was easy to care about them and wonder what would happen to them. Thumbs up for that. Another thumbs-up for the atmospheric touch. Tykwer's gloomy take on the whole thing in terms of colors, sets and cinematography made this an unpleasant watch which was actually not just pleasant, but really perfect in connection to the story we get to witness. Overall, I applaud Tykwer for what he has come up with here and while I am a lot more critical in terms of his more recent work, I must say this one here (even if it is mostly thanks to the actors) is a pretty strong achievement for a rookie filmmaker. I recommend you to check it out and I personally even like it more than "Lola rennt". It just feels more authentic in terms of the whole premise of a young female with deep psychological troubles inside of her.
This is a GREAT film
SulphurMan6 February 2003
Being a huge fan of Tykwer's work, I felt obligated to check out a very rare US screening of his debut feature, "Die Todliche Maria". It was being shown as part of a Tom Tylwer film retrospective by the local Goethe institude, and the man himself was present for discussion and dialogue concerning his films. It was a pleasure indeed. Tykwer proved to be a very thoughtful and intelligent individual with a real passion for films and the artistic/creative forces guiding them. It was a rare pleasure to meet him in person and something I will never forget.
Concerning the film itself, I must honestly admit that I was blown away by it. Deadly Maria is a dark film for Tykwer. Do not go check this out if you enjoyed the whimsical frenzy of Run Lola Run or the introspective and methodically paced Heaven. The camera work and most of the "basic" themes of this film were genuine Tykwer (working for the first time here with the remarkable Frank Griebe) but the overall atmosphere of the film made this a completely unique and engaging film on EVERY level. I dont think most of the people at the screening were all that moved by it, judging by the blank faces at the end of the film and the perplexed sentiment of many people I saw leaving the theatre. I was affected by this film on many levels, though, because I felt immersed in Marias world for the duration of the film. The character of Maria was displayed as the full package by the director, and for the first time in awhile I watched a true charecter study on film. It is relieving to know that some directors still want to have a main charecter that is examined on many levels and not just shallow surface level oriented stuff. We got an appropriate and sufficient amount of background throughout the film of her experience, making everything that happened after seem relevant and powerful. The scenes involving the young Maria were (I thought) very dark and very ominous. The colors were bleaker and the overall tone was different than the present day scenes (although they too were quite bleak). I could go on and on about how effective this film was, but I guess you just have to check it out for yourself. Nina Petri was just remarkable on all levels. Joachim Krol did a phenomenal job as the guy next door with bizarre obsessions. He is a fantastic actor.
I would put this towards the very top of Tykwer's work. In many ways, it is the dirty art house flick I think he was trying to make since he first started shooting 8mm as a kid. There are allot of surrealistic elements in this film too, and because he was able to convey them so well on such a minimal scale, my hat is tipped once again to the fantastic Tom Tykwer.
This should be released on DVD in the United States. My collection feels incomplete without it.
Concerning the film itself, I must honestly admit that I was blown away by it. Deadly Maria is a dark film for Tykwer. Do not go check this out if you enjoyed the whimsical frenzy of Run Lola Run or the introspective and methodically paced Heaven. The camera work and most of the "basic" themes of this film were genuine Tykwer (working for the first time here with the remarkable Frank Griebe) but the overall atmosphere of the film made this a completely unique and engaging film on EVERY level. I dont think most of the people at the screening were all that moved by it, judging by the blank faces at the end of the film and the perplexed sentiment of many people I saw leaving the theatre. I was affected by this film on many levels, though, because I felt immersed in Marias world for the duration of the film. The character of Maria was displayed as the full package by the director, and for the first time in awhile I watched a true charecter study on film. It is relieving to know that some directors still want to have a main charecter that is examined on many levels and not just shallow surface level oriented stuff. We got an appropriate and sufficient amount of background throughout the film of her experience, making everything that happened after seem relevant and powerful. The scenes involving the young Maria were (I thought) very dark and very ominous. The colors were bleaker and the overall tone was different than the present day scenes (although they too were quite bleak). I could go on and on about how effective this film was, but I guess you just have to check it out for yourself. Nina Petri was just remarkable on all levels. Joachim Krol did a phenomenal job as the guy next door with bizarre obsessions. He is a fantastic actor.
I would put this towards the very top of Tykwer's work. In many ways, it is the dirty art house flick I think he was trying to make since he first started shooting 8mm as a kid. There are allot of surrealistic elements in this film too, and because he was able to convey them so well on such a minimal scale, my hat is tipped once again to the fantastic Tom Tykwer.
This should be released on DVD in the United States. My collection feels incomplete without it.
Ground-breaking and Outstanding
drichner17 November 1999
When I first saw Deadly Maria at the Berlin & Beyond film festival in early 1996 here in San Francisco I was blown away.
It's full of style, like nothing I've ever seen, and uses techniques that punctuate the content more successfully than in probably any other film I've ever seen. Tykwer's later films, Wintersleepers and Run Lola Run are equally brilliant, but I prefer Deadly Maria on most levels.
As far as the content itself, it would most appeal to anyone who knows the pain of living life as someone other than who they truly want to be. It's dark and intensely honest.
What else can I say? This film touched my soul. The catharsis of seeing it shook me to my roots. Tom Tykwer is a genius, in my opinion.
See this film.
It's full of style, like nothing I've ever seen, and uses techniques that punctuate the content more successfully than in probably any other film I've ever seen. Tykwer's later films, Wintersleepers and Run Lola Run are equally brilliant, but I prefer Deadly Maria on most levels.
As far as the content itself, it would most appeal to anyone who knows the pain of living life as someone other than who they truly want to be. It's dark and intensely honest.
What else can I say? This film touched my soul. The catharsis of seeing it shook me to my roots. Tom Tykwer is a genius, in my opinion.
See this film.
6.8/10. This deserves a higher rating but..
athanasiosze1 April 2024
It's a good movie and to be honest, i should have rated it higher. However, i didn't enjoy it that much. I thought this was a "drama/thriller/fantasy", so i was prepared for something like that. Truth is, it's mislabelled. This is a drama. A "heavy drama", i mean, it was tough to watch at times. There are some poetic/dream-like scenes but its core is realistic as it gets. Nothing wrong with these movies, but i was not in the mood. In any case, it's good. Viewer empathizes with the leading character, there is a strong, almost heartbreaking story and i was waiting for a payoff, because she faced too much adversity in her life. I won't say anything about the ending, i'll just say that i didn't expect it. Not satisfying or unsatisfying, just strange.
Great acting performances by everyone here.
Great acting performances by everyone here.
Stunning debut!
yuppie-flu31 July 2001
Director Tom Tykwer has made a film, that shows the fateful powers, that are to emerge, when a woman is suppressed by men all her life. Maria lives in a dream-land, that exudes violently into real life. Tykwer managed to show the magic of common things in a gray and sorrowful existence.
Wish there were more & better prints w/ english available
nathan_thaler25 February 2003
I was fortunate enough to be present at a viewing of the only print w/ english subtitles. Also, I wish that Tykwer had the funds available in the early nineties to complete his vision of the last scene. The way he described it in a 2003 lecture at the MFA was surreal and beautiful.
Early Tykwer -- fine craft, self-indulgent freudian script
michaelmeigs11 October 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Given the excitement and the exhilarating surprises of Tykwer's subsequent work, this early film is a rude, depressing surprise, a claustrophobic brooding piece obsessively focused on hopelessness. Tykwer's craft in cinematography and direction is evident, but his script is one that might have been put together by a movie-bedazzled Goth high school student.
Yes, cinema can transform realities, altering time and transforming today's listless oppressed housewife back into her avatars as tentative child or as wide-eyed adolescent tasting a first, unexpected kiss; it can magic the lean young suitor into the indifferent, casually arrogant husband of later years; and it can change the powerful father into a bed-ridden, harsh demanding child. And as Tykwer demonstrates, letters become flashbacks, an inanimate statute has its own point of view, and dreams deliver incomprehensible alterations of reality.
But -- every character in this depressing story is progressively degraded in the telling of events that develop in confusing fashion over 25 years. The setting is a dark, depressing apartment building from which little of the action escapes; when Maria goes out to shop, the camera follows her gaze down toward her feet, rarely looking outward. Tentative, stuttering Dieter (Joachim Krol) lives downstairs, hemmed in by towering piles of crumbling newspapers and books, so that rather than offering the escape we wish for Maria (for we do, despite it all, hope for her to open finally and to take flight), he is no more than one more suffocating prisoner of the gloomy lower middle class German tenement.
And then the freudian symbolism, please -- this is the most arrant pseudo-psychological indulgence. Dark, dark, dark. The African statuette, phallus shaped, hiding place for Maria's paltry hoard, with dream powers to impregnate; the obsession with the frustration of sexuality; Maria's hoarding of letters to herself; messy rebirth, menstrual flow and vomiting; her intent killing of common household insects that she collects in a closed display box; and Tykwer's familiar confusion of falling and flight.
About halfway through the viewing, the surprises of time manipulation lose their charm and the film becomes increasingly "laengweilig" -- not "boring," the usual translation, but literally drawn-out in time, as if the resolution will never come. It does -- but there is little satisfaction and not much hope in this ending, which literally throws Maria and Dieter together, on the ground, in the grim courtyard of the building.
This film, available in Germany in VHS only, is one for the obsessionists who must own or know ALL of Tykwer. It's a waste of at least two fine actors (Petri and Krol). We can be thankful that Tykwer got most of this out of his system and survived somehow as a film maker despite it.
Yes, cinema can transform realities, altering time and transforming today's listless oppressed housewife back into her avatars as tentative child or as wide-eyed adolescent tasting a first, unexpected kiss; it can magic the lean young suitor into the indifferent, casually arrogant husband of later years; and it can change the powerful father into a bed-ridden, harsh demanding child. And as Tykwer demonstrates, letters become flashbacks, an inanimate statute has its own point of view, and dreams deliver incomprehensible alterations of reality.
But -- every character in this depressing story is progressively degraded in the telling of events that develop in confusing fashion over 25 years. The setting is a dark, depressing apartment building from which little of the action escapes; when Maria goes out to shop, the camera follows her gaze down toward her feet, rarely looking outward. Tentative, stuttering Dieter (Joachim Krol) lives downstairs, hemmed in by towering piles of crumbling newspapers and books, so that rather than offering the escape we wish for Maria (for we do, despite it all, hope for her to open finally and to take flight), he is no more than one more suffocating prisoner of the gloomy lower middle class German tenement.
And then the freudian symbolism, please -- this is the most arrant pseudo-psychological indulgence. Dark, dark, dark. The African statuette, phallus shaped, hiding place for Maria's paltry hoard, with dream powers to impregnate; the obsession with the frustration of sexuality; Maria's hoarding of letters to herself; messy rebirth, menstrual flow and vomiting; her intent killing of common household insects that she collects in a closed display box; and Tykwer's familiar confusion of falling and flight.
About halfway through the viewing, the surprises of time manipulation lose their charm and the film becomes increasingly "laengweilig" -- not "boring," the usual translation, but literally drawn-out in time, as if the resolution will never come. It does -- but there is little satisfaction and not much hope in this ending, which literally throws Maria and Dieter together, on the ground, in the grim courtyard of the building.
This film, available in Germany in VHS only, is one for the obsessionists who must own or know ALL of Tykwer. It's a waste of at least two fine actors (Petri and Krol). We can be thankful that Tykwer got most of this out of his system and survived somehow as a film maker despite it.
Tykwer's style and obsessions are obvious in Die Todliche Maria.
klaraV11 November 2002
A good young woman in terrible trouble, a good man who tries to save her, her fixation with him, their ultimate union in death or dreamland. chance encounters, chance events that change everything, problems of self-identity; all of these and especially, the scene that is repeated in Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior, and Heaven. In this scene, a person, usually the female lead, is seen from the camera's POV (in the middle of the street) crossing the street while a large vehicle looms behind her - will it hit her, or stop just in time? In RLR of course, the plot is reversed, with Lola giving her all to save Matti, but that scene is repeated several times, sometimes with Lola, sometimes with Matti, depending on what version of the run we are seeing. Sissi, in TPATW, is accidently hit by the huge truck, her life is saved by the man who caused the truck to swerve, he is able to save her life because it happens that he knows how to do emergency tracheotomies. Life is a series of accidents, apparently. Is he trying to make this cliche of film making new again - and then into a cliche again? Perhaps we have seen the end of it, though. In Heaven, Phillipa steps into the street on the way to her bombing mission and must jump back to avoid being hit by a small sportscar. It seems to be Tykwer's self-referential joke and a hint that even he has had enough of the image.
In Deadly Maria, the Nice Man Next Door (whose name I forget) is too late to save Maria. Happy chances have passed her by, only the first unhappy chance, of being her father's daughter, has formed her life. Even the bus that almost hits her as she crosses the street stops just in time, might just as well have knocked her down - a happy break, however, for the driver. The NMND may still save her, but what are the odds?
In Deadly Maria, the Nice Man Next Door (whose name I forget) is too late to save Maria. Happy chances have passed her by, only the first unhappy chance, of being her father's daughter, has formed her life. Even the bus that almost hits her as she crosses the street stops just in time, might just as well have knocked her down - a happy break, however, for the driver. The NMND may still save her, but what are the odds?
A fetish African statuette.
lionel.willoquet17 July 2001
Dreaming of changing her life, a woman, her neighbour's lover, confides her disarray in her statuette idol. The oppressive atmosphere of an insipid life is made into a drama bordering on fantasy, although somewhat drawn out in places.
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