A Girl Called Rosemarie (1996)

 “You are an excessively shameless person.”

Every country suffers some notorious sex scandal. Rosemarie Nitribitt was post WWII Germany’s sex scandal sensation. A Girl Called Rosemarie is the true story of Rosemarie’s career as a high priced prostitute, and a stupendous performance by Nina Hoss as the femme fatale seals this superb German film’s top star rating. When the film begins, Rosemarie, a teenage orphan, is in a juvenile lock-up facility, and it’s not her first visit. After landing a black eye on one warden, and taking a piece out of another, she negotiates her freedom by her usual methods–soon she’s hitchhiking to Frankfurt–suitcase in hand, with dreams of a life of high society in her beautiful, blonde head. She’s picked up by Nadler (Til Schweiger), and he’s just a brief stop in a life full of men. The film’s initial scenes establish Rosemarie as a woman who manipulates men to get what she wants, and she’s not a particularly nice person–she’s willful, determined, and dangerous.

Once in Frankfurt, she meets businessman Konrad Hartog (Heiner Lauterbach) who supports her, but he’s just another rung on the ladder to German high society. Soon she’s involved in a tangled blackmail scheme that involved 100s of men who trooped through her well-visited bedroom.

A Girl Called Rosemarie is an amazing cinematic portrayal of the power of sex. In several scenes, Rosemarie makes it clear that she can have any man she wants, and when she gets him, then for that allotted time, he can indulge his fantasies. She becomes every nuance of the female sex, and she seems to know intuitively the role to assume for each lover. At the same time she possesses a fatal flaw–and herein lies the irony and the tragedy–she fails to realize that these moments are by their nature ephemeral. While she relentlessly pursues her first love and offers to be “every woman” to him, she fails to understand the true nature of her relationship with the men who pay to possess her. She knows how to use men, but somehow misses the point that they also use her.

It’s Rosemarie’s avaricious ambition to lead the lavish lifestyle of extreme wealth. Somehow, in Rosemarie, the result is just cheap and tawdry. There’s one moment when Hartog arrives in Rosemarie’s flat and finds magazines full of photos of elaborate chandeliers–Rosemarie has installed a new, cheaper version in her ceiling. She wants to live a jet-set life mingling with the rich and famous, but she sticks out like a sore thumb, and her presence is only tolerated for a moment. She will never be one of that upper class set. According to her shady mentor, Friebert (Mathieu Carriere), she’s “lacking in seemliness” while “billionaires don’t have to behave.” It’s an indication of her bold sexual power that she can show up at a party uninvited and beckon men to her. The film’s most powerful scene is shot from Rosemarie’s viewpoint as she twirls and spins while dancing with numerous men. The camera focuses on the faces of her male partners. They look simultaneously proud they’ve been selected, but terrified that they may not be able to hang on.

With heavy emphasis on red and golds, Rosemarie is often placed like a jewel in the scene’s setting. Her mesmerizing power is a perfect complement to the glorious setting of ultra capitalist post WWII Germany. In German with English subtitles–A Girl Called Rosemarie is most highly recommended–what a film, what an actress–and what an incredible woman.