Harlis

With this revue melodrama, Robert van Ackeren – one of the forgotten figures of New German Cinema – achieved a surprise hit and won the Ernst Lubitsch Prize for the best comedy film of the year. Dancer Harlis, who lives with her girlfriend Pera, falls in love with the handsome Raymond. Outbursts of jealousy and dramatic gestures follow – until the three, who cannot bear to be apart from one another, learn to live together. What initially sounds like a trivial love triangle unfolds as a deliberately artificial play on the forms of melodrama. Van Ackeren relies on grand gestures, stylised images and a delight in excess. Instead of detached irony, the result is a film that explores clichés and emotions with stylistic confidence and a playful touch.
(Florian Widegger)