Popular reviews

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  Review by Sally Jane Black

  A violent, visceral dream of repression and unrequited love, this film lingers on the horrors of both war and romance in uncomfortable and removed ways. The finale is rightfully heralded as the most chilling moment, but to me, the part that churned my gut most was an apology. A man is executed outside, and the officer comes in and apologizes that the woman overheard. She replies that it is nothing she hasn't heard before, a skin-crawlingly weary response.

  Executions, more so than other on-screen deaths, are jarring events to me. Hangings more than anything else, but the execution-style shootings that take place over and over in this film truly got to me. They stand out beyond the dark love triangle…

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  Review by 12drue 🎞️ ★★★

  Die Filmcrew Deutschlandchallenge 2024

  Nach dem Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges herrschen chaotische Zustände im Baltikum. Der preußische Offizier Erich von Lhomond (Matthias Habich) zieht in das Schloss seines Freundes Konrad von Reval (Rüdiger Kirchstein), um gegen die Rotgardisten zu kämpfen. Konrads Schwester Sophie (Margarethe von Trotta) verliebt sich in Erich, der sie jedoch zurückweist. Inmitten von Scharmützeln und Hinrichtungen kommt es zu allerhand Eifersüchteleien, gegenseitigen Verletzungen, Beleidigungen und Machtspielereien, bis Sophie endlich den wahren Grund für Erichs Zurückweisung erfährt.

  Volker Schlöndorff verfilmt hier den, mir unbekannten, Roman Le Coup de Grace von Margeruite Yourcenar und zeigt eindrucksvoll in kühlen Schwarz-Weiß-Bildern das herrschende Chaos in Folge des Ersten Weltkrieges, das ein treffendes Spiegelbild für das Gefühlsleben der Figuren ist. Trotzdem konnte…

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  Review by shookone ★½

  stark, stiff and unwieldy

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  Review by Mike Kennedy ★★★★½

  Director Volker Schlöndorff dedicates this film “To my first master, Jean-Pierre Melville” and there is some of Melville’s stripped-back style in the look of the film.  On the other hand, the ambiguity in the film, which is one of its strong points for me, harks back more to Louis Malle and Alain Resnais with whom Schlöndorff also worked as an assistant director in Paris before returning to Germany to embark on his career as a director.

  The screenplay for Coup de Grâce was adapted by Jutta Brückner, Margarethe von Trotta and Geneviève Dormann from Marguerite Yourcenar’s 1939 novel of the same name. The story is set in the Balkans near Riga in the years immediately after the end of WWI. As…

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  Review by Thomas ★★★½

  Unrequited love, repression, and the senselessness of war, those are the themes of this lesser-known film of New German Cinema. Volker Schlöndorff´s surehanded direction, the stunning black-and-white cinematography, and the nuanced performances are highlights but most of all, I like the subtlety of the film. A lot is happening off-screen or in the subtext, so you have to pay attention. I also like that it´s a war movie with a female perspective. Since most of it is so subtle, the film doesn´t have many memorable scenes except the shocking ending, so I don´t know how much of it will stay in my mind, but I found it a rewarding watch.

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  Review by talisencrw (William Wood) ★★★★½

  This really struck a personal, compelling blow for me. I completely understood von Trotta's performance of a person who will do anything, no matter how devastating to whom, in order to be noticed, and loved. This film should be much better known, and watched.

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  Review by Aldo ★★★★★

  When Sophie asked for Erich to shoot her, I started crying. You couldn’t fit a better symbolic image of everything this movie is about.

  How fitting that it wasn’t the madness of war that ate at Erich, but the madness of love, or in his case the complications and frustrations.

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  Review by montereyhotel ★★★★★

  I’m completely shattered by the poignant love story, and overwhelmed by Schlöndorff‘s coolness-driven direction again, the last time was Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, a collaboration of Schlöndorff and his ex-wife Margarethe von Trotta who also was cast as the heroine here, which is a strong blow to the judicial system for not doing any protective measures to prevent the slandering of the press to the defendant. Der Fangschuß set at the close of WWI, the scent of defeat was all in the air among a Prussian sentry post, this negativity just integrated into the love storyline, further enhanced the strong tragic coloring.

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  Review by Miles Tiller ★★★½

  Weirdly hypnotic, weirdly dispassionate, weirdly Romantic take on unrequited love. The flat two shot presentation lays the acting bare and the expressionistic lighting of the manor really brings out the beauty of black and white. Quasi-cliche melodrama, however war is portrayed in a very strange way. Rather than stress the horrifying nature of the battle scenes with sharp violins and manic camerawork, the film almost seems at its most relaxed and procedural during these battle scenes. Even the characters attitudes reflect death in a very calm and disinterested way. This acceptance of death is amplified by the relative pointlessness of the Baltic conflict at hand, where it seems Erich and his fellow soldiers are caught up too much in their…

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  Review by Stephen M ★★★

  An adaptation of a novel by Marguerite Yourcenar, "Coup de Grace" has two themes that intersect. One is stark and unhappy tale of unrequited love that becomes obsessive and tinged with hatred. The other is the post-WWI conflict in the Balkans between the remaining German military and aristocracy against the growing Bolshevik movement. From the beginning, it's clear that there will not be a good outcome.

  A collaboration between New German Cineman director Volker Schlondorff and his wife Margarethe von Trotta (who plays the lead Countess Sophie von Reval), it is less successful than their earlier film "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum". Sophie's rejection by the German officer Eric (Matthias Habich) leads to each being preoccupied with the other…

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  Review by bulletproofQpid ★★★½

  "You've only met the worst sort of women."
  "On the contrary, I thought them the best. In any case, they didn't try to play a part in my life."

  Bad relationships can lead to some very awkward situations, but in the case of Coup de Grâce, the lack of that bad relationship leads to even worse.

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  Review by Chloe ★★★½

  I have been miserably sick for a few days, at seemingly the peak of it today, and one thing about me is I love to watch a miserable movie when I'm feeling miserable! This one was ideal, lingering WWI conflicts, unrequited love, repression, it has tous les horreurs. At first I was a bit adrift, everything happening onscreen seeming disjointed and senseless, but eventually I settled in to the pointed senselessness of it all. The muddled political conflicts, perhaps more easily understood by those with more background in eastern european history, ultimately don't matter. The tired, virtually unflinching portrayal of death is perhaps the most unsettling part of the film, as the characters are all too accustomed to war on…