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Romanze in Moll | Romance in a Minor Key

A little-seen masterpiece
Rating: 3.5 stars
February 14, 2007 3:39:03 PM

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German movies made during the Nazi reign have been largely regarded as anti-Semitic fables, Aryan propaganda, and fantasies like the 1943 Münchhausen. But Helmut Käutner puts the lie to that simplistic perception: despite rising to eminence during the Reich, he never followed a Fascist line but made humanist and ambiguous dramas, and after the war he emerged as a cinematic force. Arguably his greatest film, Romanze in Moll (1943) is a gorgeous and eloquent adaptation of a Guy de Maupassant story involving a soulless marriage, a romantic betrayal, a descent into compromised virtue, and a suicide. Käutner’s mise-en-scène is Ophuls-prime and his sense of ironic tragedy stiletto-sharp. As the fated heroine, Marianne Hoppe is a Sphinx of pre-feminist crisis; she doesn’t act so much as reflect our worst fears. This is a little-seen masterpiece undeserving of the Nazi label.

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