Reinhard Hauff’s 1978 feature comes on like a political fable but ends by asserting personal psychology over ideological impulses. Bruno Ganz is an innocent man shot and crippled in an antiterrorist police raid; as he fights to recover his life and memory, both leftists and rightists try to turn him into a symbol. Hauff’s vision of an apolitical individual trapped in a painfully politicized environment hangs on a shrewd use of limited-point-of-view shots, linking subjective camera movements and shallow rack focus to restrict the field of action and perception. Still, the film is marred by uncertain structuring and Hauff’s determined repression of the narrative information we need to gain a workable perspective on his protagonist. With Hans Christian Blech and Angela Winkler. In German with subtitles. 108 min.
