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Shadow of Angels
- Director: Daniel Schmid
- Writer: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; Daniel Schmid
- Producer: Michael Fengler; Jordan Bojilov
CGiii Comment
Adapted from Fassbinder's stage play, Schmid manages to preserve all of the theatricality, bringing absolutely nothing new to the screen...so, why bother?!?
Fassbinder's words are balderdash...for a man so dedicated to realism, his writing is a collage of self-importance...and loaded with such infantile controversy, it's difficult to see why Fassbinder has continued to be applauded.
The acting is wooden and static - dated and dull...as a director, Schmid is lost in the shadow cast by his writer and actor.
This is Fassbinder's film - the director is merely a puppet.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
Beautiful, detached, laconic, consumptive Lily Brest is a streetwalker with few clients. She loves her idle boyfriend Raoul who gambles away what little she earns. The town's power broker, called the rich Jew, discovers she is a good listener, so she's soon busy. Raoul imagines grotesque sex scenes between Lily and the Jew; he leaves her for a man. Her parents, a bitter Fascist who is a cabaret singer in drag and her wheelchair-bound mother, offer no refuge. Even though all have a philosophical bent, the other whores reject Lily because she tolerates everyone, including men. She tires of her lonely life and looks for a way out. Even that act serves the local corrupt powers.
Cast & Characters
Ingrid Caven as Lily Brest;
Rainer Werner Fassbinder as Raoul;
Klaus Lowitsch as Jude / Broker;
Annemarie Duringer as Luise M*ller;
Adrian Hoven as Herr Muller, ihr Mann;
Boy Gobert as Chief of Police: Mulller II;
Ulli Lommel as Der kleine Prinz / Little Prince;
Jean-Claude Dreyfus as Zwerg / Dwarf;
Irm Hermann as Emma;
Debria Kalpataru as Marie-Antoinette;
Hans Gratzer as Oscar;
Peter Chatel as Mann / Thomas;
Ila von Hasperg as Violet;
Gail Curtis as Tau;
Christine Jirku as Olga