DVD: Tenderness of the Wolves

Fritz Haarmann was – although the term wasn’t in use at the time – the first murderer to be recognised in Germany as a serial killer. He was executed in 1925 after being found guilty of 24 killings. Filmed in late 1973, Tenderness of the Wolves dramatises aspects of the case. It is directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s frequent collaborator Ulli Lomell – they had most recently worked together on Effi Briest.

Nonetheless, Fassbinder produced and acted in Tenderness of the Wolves, and many of his regular players including Margit Carstensen, Ingrid Cavena and Kurt Raab appear. A very creepy Raab plays Haarmann and wrote the film. Although not a Fassbinder film as such, Tenderness of the Wolves is integral to his work.

Further connections with Fassbinder’s own work come from the film’s sombre tone and the presence of extreme characters at odds with the drab world in which they live. It is not a literal biopic of Haarmann: the film is set some time shortly after World War II. Yet Haarmann’s activities are all dwelt on. He despatched his male victims vampirically, was a necrophile, lured young boys to his apartment, dismembered those he had killed and distributed human meat for consumption. This art-horror hybrid is not for the squeamish.

Lomell’s film also nods towards Fritz Lang. Raab's disconnected manner and look echo Peter Lorre’s Beckert in Lang’s M (which drew from the Haarmann case). Lomell had Raab shave his head which, along with Haarmann‘s vampiric ways, suggests Max Schreck’s Orlok in Murnau’s Nosferatu – the shadows cast by Haarmann early on clearly reference Murnau’s Nosferatu set-ups. Lomell has never made another film this good.

The new home-cinema release has a wonderful, pin-sharp restoration which puts all previous versions in the shade. Extras include a new interview with the feisty Lomell, one with the film’s director of photography, another with actor Rainer Will and a recently shot appreciation. If ever there was time to see this masterful, stomach-turning, essential piece in the Fassbinder jig-saw, it is now.

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