Review of Nekromantik (1988) by Doctorburglary ( — 02 Aug 2009

Before seeing this film, the only other film I saw thats focusing heavily on necrophilia is "kissed", so I kind of had to compare those two often in my mind as I watched.. I think both shed different lights on the subject, each of them valuable in its own way but nekromantik did the job much better as far as im concerned.

. while kissed is more of a indie-romantic kinda flick with this strange yet sublime girl thats presented a bit too carefull regarding the subject matter, there even had to be a vulgar corpse-fucker boss of hers that seves as a kind of sponge to soak up the negative feelings and stereotypes people have about necrophiliacs, she on the other hand "makes love", she treats the bodies with respect and the scenes are hiding the action making it a sort of divine spiritual action that she commits only because she can see something more, some other side of "living" in those bodies that other people dont, she prefers them fresh .

..i find all that cute, I also find it nice that the sexual act is presented in that kind of sublime way and her refusal of self-categorization concerning what she does and also a nice twist (altho kinda expected) at the end- the guy that was obsessed with her killed himself so they can finally "really" make love, what a radical act of devotion, and I say this with all seriousness.

. but lets look at nekromantik, that flick on the other hand has much more kinkiness to it, instead of otherworldly divinity we have existential dread, the main character is not really a misunderstood hypersensitive being, hes more of a sad sick motherfucker and his girlfriend that hes passionate about is a cold calculative immature bitch, they have threesomes with a pretty decomposing corpse inserting a dildo-like device in it (for her to ride the corpse)- the music seems ironical sometimes, lot of scenes very comical, fucked up, eyballs falling out and shit yet in a way that jorg put all of that together, I feel a much more genuine feeling of involvement with the characters, with the subject than in "kissed".

. it seems that kind of a humor that you can only treat the subjects with that you really have a deep connection to (not that I think jorg is a necrophiliac), when you drop most of charges against the person youre talking about, you can have genuine sympathy for him even more for pointing out the awkwardness of his situation.

. talking about the sex scenes in nekromantik vs. kissed, I know a feeling I have while watching "love flicks", often it seems they are trying to show the lovemaking in a very "clean" way presicely because they dont believe in the love part enough thinking that it will all fall apart and the fakeness will be exposed if they, say, they were to show the boyfriend cumming in the girls mouth.

. often thats of course, unnecessary but I find nekromantic brave for being able to show authentic passion and love in that deeply fucked up relationship and at the same time the very "dirty" part, making the fact that its involving NECROPHILIA with which most directors would try to find somekind of guilt ridden excuses for even choosing the subject, makes it even more braver.

. it also succeeds to give a hint to the larger subjects of life, death, eating, fucking, affection, social alienation without making it an "excuse" and making it pushy.. it makes us notice striking similarities between our everyday "normal" lives and relatinoships and these perverted marginal individuals lives, putting the living, the dead, normality, perversion etc.

in a strange line blurring pot, that while it hints to the necessary similarities also hints even more to the differences between those things, but only to genuinely re-establish much of the common ways we look at all that stuff.

. so this is a love story , it has its moments of joy, moments of sadness, moments of insanity, moments of tragedy, moments of obsession, social claustrophobia, sick kinky sex.. it keeps producing potent meaning until the very last scene and yeah.

. about recommending this one, on one hand I think that everybody should see it on the other ,it is made by jorg buttgereit.. try to watch it with your lover..very provoking film, all in all- in a "good" way!