Knife in the Head (1978)
One night when seeking his estranged wife, Hoffmann goes to the youth center where she works. The police are there rounding up radicals who frequent the center - Hoffmann runs into the building and ends up being shot in the head. He awakens with brain trauma, partially paralyzed and unable to speak. The police accuse him of stabbing an officer; the radicals herald him as an innocent victim of police brutality. During his slow recovery at the hospital, Hoffmann must piece together his life and struggle to remember the events of that night.
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Sick Product of a Sick System
Absolutely the worst movie.
it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
In many ways one might think this an ordinary film. There are no special effects, no beautiful stars, no special flourishes. But every shot is perfect. Every frame is necessary. Every nuance is in place. And Bruno Ganz is absolutely superb at every moment.I first saw this film by chance in the early eighties and have searched and searched ever since -- for 25 years -- in order to see it again. Now it's 2012 and I almost expected to be disappointed. But I am just as impressed as ever, with the superb script and under-stated direction. "Knife In The Head" will hold you in its grip until the very last frame, and only gets better in the last few minutes.It seems odd to say, because in many ways this film seems so darned ordinary, like so many others. But, but, there is some difference. Rather than ordinary, I think it might be one of the best films ever made.
This is a terrific film, a political and psychological thriller, as well as a touching human drama about a man recovering from a devastating brain injury, filmed at a time when the Red Army Faction and the Baader-Meinhof gang were active in West Germany, and the state's reaction was to respond with what many at the time considered an almost totalitarian extreme of repression and violation of civil liberties.Vincent Canby, in his New York Times review, rated Ganz's performance as "extraordinary", and found "Knife in the Head" to be a "major, very original German movie".I have published a detailed review online in "Senses of Cinema".
I found this to be a very powerful film when I first saw it almost 25 years ago. My opinion of it remains the same to-day as it was then. I regret that more people have not had the opportunity to see this remarkable film.
Bruno Ganz is astonishing as a man recovering from traumatic brain injury. His performance is more realistic than most cinematic depictions of brain injury (aside from the idea that brain surgery could have been performed without shaving his head!), which is in itself remarkable; the many ways in which there is a knife in his head, literally and figuratively and symbolically, add layers to an already brilliant performance.Angela Winkler also shines in her complex and troubled relationship to the injured man.It's been years since I saw this film, and yet it stays with me. I really want to see it again. I have to say I think it's a real shame that it was not more widely seen initially, and that it never seems to make it back to the revival houses...