Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Emil Bakkum The film Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum gives me an uneasy feeling, and this alone is of course a merit. On the other hand, during the film I had high hopes about the climax, and the actual ending became a disappointment. I still think that the director and the writer have missed an opportunity. Unfortunately it may well be that the silly unraveling is actually their intention. Most part of the film seems to be a warning to the viewer, that he or she can become a victim of the public opinion and the judicial system. Since this is both true and ill understood, the film could bring some enlightenment. In the Netherlands there used to be a PR campaign proclaiming that "the police is your best friend". In fact the interest of the police and the accidental bypasser are seldom coinciding, and paragraphs about extorted false confessions are not uncommon. And although the highly subjective gathering of news by the media is well known, most people still tend to believe what is in print or on the screen. The story is located in the turbulent Germany in 1975, at a time when violent revolutions still seemed a viable alternative. The anarchist Rote Armee Fraktion scored its first terrorist successes. The Berlin journals of Springer Verlag started a right-wing campaign, which had some resemblance to the American McCarthy years. Civil rights were curtailed, and radical citizens were excluded from certain professions. In this political climate the famous left-wing politician Rudi Dutschke was shot by an idiot. The film hitches on to these living conditions, when the main character Blum experiences love at first sight for a suspected and wanted "terrorist". Actually, the story is not quite clear about his criminal past, and it may consist of conscientions objection, verbal agitation or being member of a subversive organization or so. After a one night stand with the man (a quickie) Blum is arrested on suspicion of accessory. The man himself has somehow disappeared in a miraculous way. The police officer/interrogator is an unpleasant character, but to me his behavior seems to be within the usual limits. His main fault is a collaboration with an unscrupulous newspaper journalist. They exchange information, which is indeed penal and an official abuse, but I fear also quite common. The journalist even obtrudes himself on the dying mother of Blum, and writes a distorted paragraph about it. Characteristic is the reaction of the pertinent surgeon in response to the article: "If he indeed has entered the intensive care station, the hospital will sue him. However I think it is impossible". Consequently the public opinion condemns Blum as a terrorist, and she is spit at etc. So far so good. But then the story takes a bizarre turn. We discover that Blum has actually organized the escape of the "terrorist", and his going into hiding. Apparently she is indeed an accessory and guilty. In the end, she actually murders the journalist (and it is suggested also his photographer). The tables are turned: Blum is an unscrupulous criminal and the police officer and the journalist are effective professionals, albeit human, who deserve our admiration. The film ends with the burial scene of the journalist, where in a moving speech the liberty of the press and its vital importance for the democracy are professed. We are back with the fairy tale that the police is your best friend and the media tell the truth. In a world full of power abuse this is not the most helpful message, and therefore I can not frankly recommend this film. If you are captivated by the theme of state oppression in some form, you may consider seeing Fatherland, Man of Marble, Einer trage des anderen Last, or Die Architekten. In addition my list of reviews contains lots of films about unionism.

Brandt Sponseller In the early 1970s, West Germany was having quite a problem with what was known as the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. Author Heinrich Böll wrote an article criticizing what he saw as the German tabloid Bild-Zeitung's fear-mongering tactics in their reporting of the activities of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Subsequently, Böll was called a terrorist sympathizer, and the police began checking him out as if he were a criminal. This provoked Böll into writing a novel, also called The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, which was to serve as a parable for the consequences of "yellow journalism" and fascist-leaning police actions. The subtitle of the book was the over-ambitious "How violence can arise and what it can lead to".Filmmakers Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta knew and empathized with Böll so they began to put the film into production immediately. I haven't read the novel, so I can't compare the two, but unfortunately the film, at least based on the English language translation, comes nowhere near its goals in terms of political or social commentary.Here's how the story begins per what we actually see on the screen: a man--he turns out to be Ludwig Götten (Jürgen Prochnow)--who is behaving mysteriously/covertly finds his way to a party. At the party, he hooks up with a swinging trio consisting of an apparent Arab and two women. They then head to another party, where Götten runs into Katharina Blum (Angela Winkler). They stare at each other oddly and dance slowly. The Arab heads off to the bathroom, reports to whoever is listening on the other side of his wire that Götten and Blum are together, and we see Götten and Blum subjected to surveillance as they leave together to go to her apartment. In the morning (I'm not sure why they'd wait until morning), police, including armed men in something like riot gear, storm into Blum's apartment, planning on absconding Götten. But Götten is gone. So they take Blum in for questioning. It seems that Götten is a suspected terrorist and they want to know what Blum's relationship is to him. Blum ends up briefly imprisoned.At the same time, a local tabloid paper, simply called "The Paper" in the English-language subtitles, at least, begins printing trumped up stories about Blum, occasionally even completely fabricating quotes from interviewees. As in the novel, the gist of the film is supposed to be that the treatment from the police and the newspaper are "ruining Blum's life".It's certainly true that the police and the journalists shown in the film get a bit out of line. However, their transgressions are relatively minor, especially compared to other filmic depictions of such things. Blum is never strong-armed by the police, for example. Compared to the real world, there are no molestations with broomstick handles here. The journalists do not do anything unusual for tabloid journalists. I can't remember when it started publishing, but The Weekly World News sure fabricates stories a lot stronger than "The Paper" in Katharina Blum does, and it's not as if The National Enquirer, say, hasn't been successfully sued for slander/libel. On the other hand, The National Enquirer hasn't exactly ruined lives, either. That would be quite an exaggeration.It's not clear why Blum answers the police's line of questioning without objecting more vehemently or alternately refraining from talking and incriminating herself. I'm not sure what Germany's laws are, or were, on that. No one tells us that Blum has to respond to the police in the way that she does, and she certainly doesn't try very hard to do otherwise.If we look at things from the police's perspective for a moment, Götten is supposedly a terrorist. While we're not shown anything confirming this, we're not shown anything denying it, either. We don't know what kind of evidence the police have on Götten. And here is a woman who is apparently helping him out. So, obviously, they're going to question her, and police will ask you all kinds of questions that you don't have to answer. As shown in the film, it is suggested that Blum is actually lying about the extent of her interactions with Götten. If she just met him, many plot points make little sense. Further, Schlöndorff and von Trotta suggest in subtle ways that Blum's circle of acquaintances might not just be ideological leftists. Given all of this, the police aren't really shown doing anything out of line except asking questions that Blum wouldn't have had to answer.The Paper gets more out of line, but we're actually only shown a couple incidents where they change words in someone's statement. The idea is that Blum is being tried and convicted in the tabloid. Yet, "tried and convicted in the press" is hyperbole, certainly. Blum remained free. She wasn't proved guilty of anything. The emotional turmoil she experiences (which leads to a much improved climax) seems more a result of her own odd disposition (and the character is quite odd and somewhat volatile in the film) than blamable on stories in the newspaper. The only person who ruins Blum's life is Blum.If you haven't seen the film yet, it might seem odd that I'm hanging on narrow points so much. You're probably saying, "But what about the plot? Isn't this a good, suspenseful film?" The bulk of the film consists of the police questioning Blum and reporters trying to interview her family, friends and associates (although that takes up a lot less time than the police questioning Blum). This is nothing if not a "talking head" film. It succeeds or not largely based on that talking. There are stretches where the talking is engaging, even if it's not making the point that Schlöndorff and von Trotta want to make. It's a good idea, and could have worked with a better script. But there's not much else to praise, including the technical elements, which are just average.

honeybearrecords It's funny, but the recent Criterion DVD release of "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum" gives it a whole new perspective. Next to "The Legend of Rita", "Lost Honor" is almost like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". But in this case, it's dead serious.Katharina Blum is a normal German woman who has a one-night state with a man she meets at a party. Later, she finds out that he is an anarchist and part of a Baader-Meinhoff-type gang; the group Rita from "Legend of Rita" is supposed to be a member of.Responding to the activities of German urban guerrillas, there is a national dragnet to hunt them down. Blum is arrested and gets caught up in the hunt, revealing a myopic government at it's most abusive. Equally revealing is the insidious nature of the media and it's role in repression. You can't help but get a chill watching it not because you can't believe it ever happened. But because you can't believe it happens all the time. Life in America is a lot like Katharina Blum's for many people.Schlöndorff is an intellectual. Both of these films are great reflections of that. They're smart, challenging while being well paced and lithe. "Lost Honor" marked the directorial debut of Margarethe Von Trotta (in some ways a protégé of Schlöndorff's not to mention lover) who would go on to great things including "Rosa Luxembourg".

spyit "The Lost Honor of..." not only tells an interesting story with powerful writing, acting and cinematography, but is also a must see for those disturbed by the powerauthoritarian governments (communist, fascist, and everything in between) possess to exploit individual human rights. I wish we could view this film as a well made relic of the past, but unfortunately its subject matter is as relevent today as it was in 1970's West Germany. As in Katarina's world, terrorism is again the favored epithet of the day as the U.S.'s social and political climate moves away from a conversation between differing individual view points and towards an 'on message' insistence on absolute conformity.Katarina is a young maid with little money, who sleeps with a man she barely knows, a man who is under surveillance as a suspected terrorist. Because she was seen with the supposed terrorist, her life is torn apart by police interrogators and a press that only reports "facts" which support its particular ideology, even if the details must be fabricated. Although those who know Katarina tell the press and police of a bright, sweet, and quiet girl, her reputation is run through the gutter by the men who translate her private life to the public world. Eventually, Katarina takes on the attributes of a stereotypical terrorist because the state has given her no choice but to become radicalized. Simply because Katarina will not give up her dignity and privacy, she becomes an enemy of the state.For Katarina, her private life becomes glaringly public, and the public judges her based on both the fabricated evidence presented by her accusers (both press and government) as well as their own assumptions about how a woman should behave. In the society that surrounds Katarina, the state functions through conformity, and those who do not conform instantly become the enemy. As a woman, Katarina bears the brunt of this brutality, as her sexuality becomes both exploited and demonized. The young maid becomes a media fixation, a beautiful sexual terrorist.Although much of this might sound familiar, the film relates these political and social paradoxes on an individual, personal level. As in Katarina's case, sensational news stories rarely investigate the cogs which make them front page headlines-they only reinforce easy reactions of judgemental outrage. "The Lost Honor of ..." shines a bright light on the lives that are trampled beneath the broad strokes of an unyielding and inhuman militarized state and the press and public which supports it.