From the Life of the Marionettes / Aus dem Leben der Marionetten / Из жизни марионеток (1980)
German, Russian | Subtitle: English (not built in) | 1:39:27 | 640 x 464 | 25fps | DivX | AC3 - 192kbps | 1.4 GB
Genre: Drama
The title is a quotation excerpted from a passage in The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi:
"Most unfortunately in the lives of the Marionettes there is always a BUT that spoils everything".
Unlike Collodi's story, however, Bergman's is unremittingly bleak in tone.
The film charts the disintegration of the relationship of Katarina and Peter Egermann, the feuding couple seen briefly in Bergman's earlier Scenes From a Marriage. As Katarina seeks other lovers, the emotionally repressed Peter descends into neuroses, eventually leading him to murder a stripper/prostitute (played by Rita Russek), with the same name as his wife, at a Munich peep show before sodomising her dead body. In the closing sequence he is incarcerated in a mental asylum. An odd counterpoint to the depressing tone of the film is the sprightly disco soundtrack over the end credits.