Synopsis
Petra von Kant is a successful fashion designer -- arrogant, caustic, and self-satisfied. She mistreats Marlene (her secretary, maid, and co-designer). Enter Karin, a 23-year-old beauty who wants to be a model. Petra falls in love with Karin and invites her to move in.
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Cast
- Margit CarstensenPetra von Kant
- Hanna SchygullaKarin Thimm
- Katrin SchaakeSidonie von Grasenabb
- Eva MattesGabriele von Kant
- Gisela FackeldeyValerie von Kant
- Irm HermannMarlene
Recommendations
- 88
Slant Magazine
Bitter Tears offers a sensory feast that’s expanded on by the elaborate dialogue, which is poetic even as translated into English, and by the astonishingly sensual and fluid movements of the actors and the camera. - 83
The A.V. Club
It functions reasonably well as a straightforward, agonized melodrama, but it’s first and foremost a master class—co-taught by famed cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (Goodfellas, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Quiz Show), who got his start with Fassbinder—in the dynamic visual use of a constricted space, and proof that a tiny budget is no excuse. - 80
Time Out
Coldly described, the set and costume design and the hothouse atmosphere represent so much high-camp gloss; but once again this careful stylisation enables Fassbinder to balance between parody of an emotional stance and intense commitment to it. He films in long, elegant takes, completely at the service of his all-female cast, who are uniformly sensational. - 75
Chicago Reader
A lesbian love triangle becomes a schema of sexual power plays in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s most harshly stylized and perhaps most significant film. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
The intentionally artificial campiness of the story eventually becomes touching, as it's played out against the sound of The Platters singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and The Great Pretender. - 70
Slate
Every detail of staging, movement, and utterance is studied, affected to the highest degree, while the lust, anger, malice, and grief are wildly, shockingly real. - 70
The Independent
A berserk, angry, funny and exhausting analysis of sado-masochistic power games masquerading as loving relationships. - 70
Los Angeles Times
A demanding, harrowing drama of agonized love laced with sardonic humor. [19 Apr 1992, p.9]
