Die 120 Tage von Bottrop

The location is Europe’s biggest building site, the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin. The last survivors of the Fassbinder era have gathered here around producer Volker Spengler (himself). The target: to make the very last Neue Deutsche Film in five days, a remake of Pasolini’s notorious Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom. It is soon apparent that the project is too ambitious. The producer has too many images in his head, the leitmotiv of the film is hopelessly lost and the money runs out. The spirits of the past seem to have nestled themselves in the project and attempts to make up the balance of thirty years of Germany cinema result in its burial.Die 120 Tage von Bottrop is an absurdist homage to and a parody of the eccentricity and insanity of the Fassbinder era. Christoph Schlingensief, the enfant terrible of German film, has brought together a choice selection of old-timers from the film and theatre world for this project. We see the regular Fassbinder actresses Margit Carstensen (almost senile in the film) and the old diva Irm Hermann, the famous actors Udo Kier and Helmut Berger. The experimental film-maker Kurt Kren has a role as actor and cameraman, Irmgard Freifrau Baronin von Berswordt-Wallrabe plays Leni Riefenstahl and the ghost of Kurt Raab puts in a brief appearance. With Die 120 Tage von Bottrop, Schlingensief adds a new chapter to his oeuvre that focuses on insulting and deconstructing the German cultural heritage.