The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2022

Mutzenbacher

Berlin Film Festival 2022: Mutzenbacher | Review
13 February 2022
Oliver Johnston
Avatar
Oliver Johnston
13 February 2022

Movie and show review

Oliver Johnston

Mutzenbacher

★★★★★

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2022

10th to 16th February 2022

The principle behind director Ruth Beckermann’s documentary sounds novel, and even a little thought-provoking: a succession of men from all walks of life sit on a (luxuriously upholstered) sofa while reciting passages from a notorious 1906 piece of erotica. By engaging with the text, the men are forced to reflect upon their own relationship with sex, theoretically giving the audience some specific insights into contemporary male sexuality, in all its colourful forms.

The text in question is the exotically named, anonymously authored Josephine Mutzenbacher or the Story of a Viennese Whore, as Told by Herself, first published in Austria. The film makes a point of (accurately) telling its audience just how contentious the book was (and remains). It’s essentially the narrator ticking all the boxes as she works her way through every conceivable taboo, most controversially when she was still a child (and already a sex worker), as well as incest. Interestingly, the most plausible true identity of the writer is Felix Salten, who also wrote Bambi (funny how Disney never adapted Salten’s other work). 

The documentary is structured as the subjects auditioning for a project based upon the novel, and there’s something irritatingly inauthentic about this approach. Many of the men seem to believe that they’re there to audition, without realising that they’re already involved in the project. Some of them seem so wide-eyed and enthusiastic about the prospect that it feels a little, well, mean. There are few reservations when an offscreen voice (presumably Beckermann herself) enquires about the men’s reactions to the text, guiding (and occasionally goading) them into discussing their own sexuality. Of course they’re going to be agreeable if they think they’re in the process of auditioning, even if some of them probably thought they’d wandered into a Harvey Weinstein-style situation. Yes, the very fact that Beckermann is coaxing the men to acquiesce her whims subverts the tiresomely well-established power dynamic between the sexes, but this is about as revolutionary as going to a foreign country and seeing how different the McDonald’s menu is. 

It works as an occasionally moderately interesting exercise, but the question is whether an audience wants to watch a feature-length, occasionally moderately interesting exercise. Any alleged insights seem tremendously manipulated, and it remains unclear just what the documentary was hoping to achieve. Thoughts remain very much unprovoked.  

★★★★★

Oliver Johnston

Mutzenbacher does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2022 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Related Itemsberlin film festivalberlinalefilm festivalreview

More in Berlinale

A Little Love Package

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Sonne

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Gangubai Kathiawadi

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

“I was always trying to find this equilibrium between improvising and following the script”: Carla Simón on Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love: An interview with Nicolette Krebitz

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Berlinale 2022: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Concerned Citizen

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Rimini: An interview with director Ulrich Seidl

Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Oliver Johnston

Mutzenbacher

★★★★★

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2022

10th to 16th February 2022

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • The Road Dance
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Innocents
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Amazons launch How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? at Live Nation
    Live music
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Corsage
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic at the British Museum
    ★★★★★
    Art
  • Eo (Hi-Han)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Warpaint at the Roundhouse
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Armageddon Time
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Berlin Film Festival 2022: Europe | Review
Berlin Film Festival 2022: Everything Will Be Ok | Review