Knife in the Head
(Messer im Kopf)

Screening on Film

Directed by Reinhard Hauff.
With Bruno Ganz, Angela Winkler, Heinz Hoenig.
West Germany, 1978, 35mm, color, 108 min.
German with English subtitles.

Scientist Dr. Berthold Hoffmann (Ganz) is shot in the head while trying to pick up his wife from a political rally. During a long recovery process, he must learn how to walk, talk, speak and eat again. But his travails are not over: the police, in an attempt to cover up their mistake, brand him a terrorist, while Volker (Hoenig), a left-wing activist and lover of the doctor's wife, wants to use Hoffman's case for political propaganda by labeling him a "victim of police terror." Buffeted between these forces, Hoffmann becomes a symbol of the German people of the time, paralyzed by the politics of the era and desperate to create themselves anew.