Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria (1969) by Peter Fleischmann
Sunday, March 27, 1983, 8:00 pm
Peter Fleischmann
Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria
1969, 84 min. ‘A precursor to the current German New Wave Cinema, and one of the first films to deal sympathetically with the oppression of gay sexuality.’ —Michael Wallin.
“Faced with the contemporary reality of total warfare, internecine revolt, and ecological suicide, sociologists and anthropologists are trying to discover whether the causes of violence are to be found in our social structure or in human nature itself… The film answers this question through describing a small German community as one great chain of persecution of the weak by the strong. The operating force is that everyone takes part in this struggle, sometimes as hunter and sometimes as prey… The viewer is forced into an objective contemplation of everyday tolerance, escalating into evermore forms of harmful aggression… The film would be an unrelieved horror if it were not paced with robust scenes of farming life and strong rustic humor…The film has no heroes, it also has no villains. Each character is a clearly observed human being. They are all average people who are basically decent, and it is precisely this which makes the film so frightening and significant.’’ —Henry Herx, Films 69/70