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Maria Braun), and in the past few years has worked with Jean-Luc Godard (Passion), Ettore Scola (La Nuit de Varennes) and Marco Ferreri (The Story ofPiera). By now Schygulla has perfected the bold gesture deftly applied. The grocery-door shutters snap down, or a window shade snaps up, and a thrill sizzles through her like lightning. In the interrogation room she gets a look at her cuckolded husband and quickly puts her fingers to her eyes, gouging out his presence. Her mouth arcs, her tongue flicks, her eyes blaze, her face is illuminated by the reckless glow of a true believer in the imperatives of Eros.
This is a dramatic vocabulary rooted in the operatic purity of silent-film making; Schygulla uses it to create, with each film, a new chapter in the emotional biography of the modern European woman. A Love in Germany reveals Schygulla as a superb, fearless actress and an international star ready to take Hollywood. Wake the town, tell the people. Frighten the horses, even. —By Richard Corliss