Der Weibsteufel

An unconventional, thrilling anti-homeland film staged as a chamber play in a remote, snowy mountain world dominated by the forces of nature. A destructive love triangle involving a gendarme, a young farmer's wife and her husband, an old smuggler. ‘At last,’ wrote contemporary critics, ’these film characters have nothing in common with those who used to populate mountain pastures in agfa-coloured dull moods in bad Heimat films for so long.’ With this version of Karl Schönherr's notorious stage play, shot in glistening black and white, the ‘Heimatfilm’ arrived in the modern age: not a kitschy mountain idyll, but a deadly power struggle. At the very end, the woman decides in her favour by playing the two men, her lover and her husband, off against each other. (Brigitte Mayr)