SCHRAMM
Dir. Jorg Buttgereit, 1993
Germany, 65 min.
In German with English Subtitles

SATURDAY, MARCH 9 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, MARCH 22 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, MARCH 30 – 10 PM

“Today I am dirty, but tomorrow I’ll be just dirt”

A loner with frequent fantasies of castration and a predisposition for decapitating random salesmen who knock on his door, Lothar Schramm may be Jorg Buttgereit’s most uncomfortable creation and that’s saying a lot. Plot counts for little across the 60 minutes of bleak character study and fragmented storytelling that make up SCHRAMM, but what intrigue there is comes through Schramm’s sole human connection – his next door neighbor Marianne (NEKROMANTIK 2’s Monika M.), a sex worker who Schramm can’t decide if he wants to murder or protect.

Shorn of the transgressive playfulness of the NEKROMANTIK films or the structuralist experimentation of DER TODESKING, SCHRAMM is a relentlessly bleak depiction of one man’s fractured mental state that refuses even an inch of mercy. Told in a highly subjective style that shifts between memory, fantasy, and reality – often within the same frame – SCHRAMM has an uncanny ability to disturb you like few films can.