Date/Time
Date(s) - 07/10/2019
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Categories
WED. July 10, 2019 – 7:00 PM
Germany, 1985, 86 min.
Director: Percy Adlon
Cast: Marianne Sägebrecht, Eisi Gulp, Toni Berger, Manuela Denz
She lies on the surface of a swimming pool like a dead woman. It’s a symbol of her stagnant life: a fat, unattractive woman, 38 years old, who works at a funeral home and lives in a dreary one bedroom apartment. She spends her evenings eating in bed in front of a small TV. Every day she travels to work with the subway. She’s sitting in a carriage, sleepily staring dead ahead, when a miracle occurs. The voice of the subway driver announcing the stations tears her out of her misery. When she disembarks, she briefly catches sight of the young driver, and for her that’s it. She does whatever she can to learn his name. She sneaks into the drivers’ offices and researches the duty rosters. She follows him and finds out where he lives. At the same time, she transforms herself from an ugly duckling into a colourful, attractive woman. She buys perfume, lingerie and high-heeled shoes. She purchases a large mattress and satin sheets. At last she talks to him and lures him to her apartment. She feeds her sugar baby, bathes him and sleeps with him. He meanwhile acquiesces willingly. Thanks to his ambitious, frigid wife, he’s not used to such thoughtful attention, and instead simply co-exists with her, measuring the length of their marriage in instalment payments for the bedroom. Since his wife is out of town for two weeks, he enjoys his love affair with his new girlfriend. Food, bubble baths, pinball, motorcycling. When they’re rock ‘n’ roll dancing at an Italian restaurant, his wife suddenly shows up and destroys their lovers’ idyll. She hits her rival and hustles her husband out of the restaurant. Just as at the film’s start, the funeral attendant lies like a corpse on the water’s surface. But then she screams and takes a stand. She won’t give up. At the end, we see her, all dressed up, on the subway platform waiting for her sugar baby.
Director Percy Adlon avoids clichés or presenting his characters as embarrassing or grotesque. The fascinating Marianne Sägebrecht plays her role with real dignity and a reserved charm that never seems ridiculous. Her transformation from church mouse to colourful bird comes about not only through different clothes or a new, chic hairstyle, but also her facial expression, which becomes more vibrant and radiant. Her whole appearance becomes more self-assured.
Daniel Toscan du Plantier writes: “Contrary to the suicidal and morbid discourse in Marco Ferreri’s ‘La Grande Bouffe’, which describes the agony of today’s world as an excess of pleasure and flesh, Zuckerbaby opens the door to an encouraging world transformed by the constructive will of a woman into a modern paradise.”
