The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972)

Starring: Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla, Katrin Schaake, Eva Mattes, Gisela Fackeldey, Irm Hermann

First, the Lowdown: A egotistic fashion designer has a torrid affair with an aspiring model.

Petra von Kant is a famous German designer who has wowed the fashion world with her inspired designs and audacious personality. Behind the scenes, she is brutally cruel to her assistant, Marlene: insulting at one moment, then seductive the next. Petra’s cousin, Sidonie, makes a surprise visit and introduces Karin, who wants to become a model. Almost immediately, Petra is smitten with Karin – to the frustration of Marlene. Soon after, Petra and Karin are living together, with the designer supporting the young lady’s pursuit of modeling.

During their time together, Petra and Karin expose themselves emotionally to each other: Petra’s previous romances have all ended poorly (the father of her teenage daughter died before she was born), whereas Karin’s father killed her mother in a drunken rage before committing suicide. Karin has always felt her tragic past distanced her from previous relationships, where as Petra sees it as one more thing the share in common. But while Petra finds herself becoming closer and closer to her lover, Karin still remains aloof.

This is yet another one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “I shot this in a week” style dramas. We never leave Petra’s studio apartment, even though months pass as the film goes on. But the limited scenery works well to the story’s advantage. At first the closed space feels intimate, especially as our wayward lovers first become acquainted with each other. As the movie progresses (and Petra and Karin’s relationship comes apart at the seams), the room becomes claustrophobic, and then desperately confining – a refuge from someone who has become secluded by her own emotions.

Line of the Movie: “It's sad, believe me, when you realize that the distressing things by far overweight the beautiful things you feel.”

Three and a half stars. Time to plant the corn.

My Trek of the Stars, Part 14: Court Martial

Guest Starring: Percy Rodriguez, Elisha Cook, Joan Marshall, Richard Webb, Hagan Baggs, Winston De Lugo

First, the Lowdown: Kirks accidentally wanders into a “Perry Mason” episode, and can’t remember how to get out.

So, the Enterprise is drydocked at Starbase 11 after drunkenly swerving through an ion storm and Kirk is debriefing with the base commander, Commodore Stone, while nursing a wicked hangover. The captain woefully explains that because of the intensity of the storm, he had to jettison the “ion pod” containing crewman Benjamin Finney. As if drawn to the siren song of plot convenience, Ben Finney’s daughter, Jame, bursts into the room, frothing at the mouth with righteous indignation over her father’s death. To make the scene even more uncomfortable, Stone informs Kirk that the computer records show the ion pod was jettisoned before red alert had been sounded, meaning that Finney may have been killed without need. (This kinda thing matters only when it’s an officer.) Smelling manure-like undertones in Kirk’s report, Stone requests an investigation be held.

The investigation reveals that Kirk and Finney used to be the best of friends - Finney’s daughter, who tried clawing the captain’s eyes out earlier, was named after the lovable captain. When they were young, lovable Lieutnants on board the Republic, Kirk had ratted out Finney for leaving the atomic piles open (Finney was doing blow in a storeroom), and because of his reprimand, Finney was passed over for a command promotion. (Then again, his coke habit might be a factor, too.) Fast forward to the present: Kirk ordered Finney into the ion pod because he was at the top of the duty roster – the fact Finney goes in there to snort off a bump notwithstanding. But Commodore Stone still doesn’t believe Kirk’s story and thinks the junior officer has gone full retard - which would reduce Kirk to a ground assignment. Kirk, however, tells the Commodore where he can stick his ground assignment and demands to be tried in a court martial.

Reeling from his interrogation, Kirk staggers into the starbase’s lounge for some liquid courage and is greeted by former lover Areel Shaw. Shaw, being a lawyer, knows of Kirk’s legal troubles and tells him to take them a bit more seriously than a bank executive at a senate hearing. The prosecution is preparing their case based on the computer evidence, which means that Kirk would have a better chance of winning if he mailed his dick to the appellate courts. The reason why Shaw knows about the plaintiff’s legal strategy is because she is serving as lead prosecutor in Kirk’s trial (apparently conflict of interest doesn’t exist in the 23^rd Century.)

Confined to base, Kirk heads to his quarters and finds they’re already occupied by a homeless squatter and his library of books. The hobo’s name is Samuel T. Cogley, and Shaw has recommended he serve as Kirk’s defense counsel (brilliant legal strategy there.) Cogley is a Luddite who has eschewed using a computer for books because that’s where the law is (I guess he’s never had much use for a paralegal aide either.)

The trial begins and Spock is called to the stand. Employing the kind of logic used by conservative pundits, Spock explains that although the computer records show Kirk’s lapse in judgement, they are wrong (after all, one should never let something as petty as recorded facts get in the way of truth.) The Enterprise’s personnel officer then gives her testimony which only repeats the same drama that happened on the Republic between Kirk and Finney, and really has no other reason for being present at the trial than to make Kirk look like more of an asshole. Dr. McCoy then gives his statement as a psychiatric professional on Kirk’s command fitness – first by being reminded not to speculate on behalf of the defense, and then by speculating on the behalf of the prosecution. During all of these testimonies, Cogley has refused to cross-examine the witnesses, instead devoting his attention to a book of Sudoku puzzles.

Finally Kirk is called to the stand, and gives such a warm-hearted, patriotic sermon about the need to protect the overall safety of his vessel – no matter the cost – you expect him to start singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Ms. Shaw takes the wind out of his sails, however, when she plays back the computer recording of the event in question. The record not only shows Kirk picking his nose and scratching his butt, but also proves that the ion pod was jettisoned during yellow alert status, not red. Kirk can only numbly claim “That’s not the way it happened,” all the while wondering if his ass really does look that big in his uniform as the camera showed.

During the trial’s recess, Cogley suggests that Kirk change his plea – for all the help his legal defense has been giving him. Spock calls from the Enterprise to inform the captain that a computer survey has been completed and found no damage (“And I have taken the liberty of removing your collection of pornographic images as well.”) Kirk, tells Spock to make sure he beats his next commader at chess, leaving Spock to wonder if that statement has as much importance to the plot as the incidental music makes it sound.

Moments later, McCoy walks in on Spock enjoying a leisurely game of chess in the briefing room and says the Vulcan could help the captain out better by playing Pokemon. Spock, however, informs the doctor that because computers are perfect and all, the chess matches should end in stalemate. But instead, Spock has been winning game after game – obviously pointing to tampering with the computer’s memory banks (either that or it’s malware from all the porn Kirk has been downloading.) With this new evidence in tow, Spock and McCoy rush to the courtroom.

Just as a verdict is about to be announced, Spock and McCoy tell Cogley their findings, and, in order to hear this new development out, Cogley gives an even more impassioned speech about how computers dehumanize people (and how we must all shield our thoughts from them by wearing tinfoil hats.)

The trial reconvenes aboard the Enterprise, where Spock tells the court that the computer is broken, and the only people who could’ve broken it are Kirk, Spock, or the late records officer, Finney. Kirk says that he performed a search of the ship to make sure that Finney wasn’t still around, but also says that it’s possible for someone to evade that kind of search if they wanted to, say, do some blow in a storeroom somewhere. Cogley concludes that Finney is probably hiding somewhere on the Enterprise, and probably stinks of his own waste too.

To prove Cogley’s hypothesis, Kirk conducts an overly elaborate experiment that requires all personnel be beamed off the ship (all 400+ of them) excepting the command crew and those present at the court. Cogley also requests to leave, as this whole trial thing is getting really boring for him. Spock tells the court that the Enterprise has auditory sensors so powerfully accurate that they can hear a mouse fart in high wind. To prove this, Spock uses them to amplify the heartbeats of everyone still on board. After filtering out the heartbeats of everyone that should be in the room, there’s still one left – Finney’s. (I guess it’s a good thing no other kinds of noise ever happen on a starship.) The heartbeat is coming from engineering, where Finney has spent the last few hours turning random switches so that the Enterprise’s orbit begins to decay.

Kirk walks into engineering to confront the bedraggled officer, but Finney gets the jump on him and disarms the captain. Now that Kirk is at his mercy, Finny starts ranting in the kind of whining, rambling, incoherent fashion that normally comes out of a cokehead that’s been recently divorced. Kirk, however, explains to the crazed man that if Finney crashes the ship, he’ll kill his own daughter (thanks to a legalistic dick-move by Cogley.) Realizing this, Finney goes into a full-blown Tom Cruise style freakout which gives Kirk ample time to pummel the crap out of him.

After beating the man senseless, Kirk weans out of Finney the magic series of tubes and wires that will restore the Enterprise’s power and bring it back into orbit. Since the entire drama was overheard by the tribunal members over the intercom, Commodore Stone dismisses Kirk’s case, leaving Cogley to wonder how many billable hours Kirk has accumulated.

Things to look for in this episode:

Samuel Cogley: It’s a good thing the Kindle wasn’t around back then – it would probably make him beat it’s owner to death with the Collected works of Charles Dickens.

Lt. Finney: He looks like some twisted hybrid of Willem Dafoe and Richard Moll. Hearing him rave about how much his career sucks makes you want to say “Would you shut up and pass that line over?”

What is McCoy not today? Able to perform as an expert witness.

And what about Spock? Spock needs to learn that you can only use “I’m a Vulcan, dumbass,” so many times as an excuse before people stop listening to you.