Radiance Films: Red Sun (1970) - Reviewed

Images Courtesy of Radiance Films

When most think of the emergence of the New German Cinema or German New Wave which lasted from 1962 to 1982, names such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders or Volker Schlöndorff come to mind.  One name who has his roots footed in this period who remained prolific but nevertheless obscure to Western filmgoers is Rudolf Thome who has directed more than thirty features since the early 1960s.  

His second major feature, the post-late sixties mod female assassin thriller Red Sun, was widely considered to be every bit as stimulating as his contemporaries but due to weak distribution plans it sunk into obscurity.  Thankfully now with the help of new boutique label Radiance Films and participation from the director himself, Red Sun now has a chance to be properly reassessed as a curious and peculiarly playful offshoot of the New German Cinema movement as well as a progenitor of women’s liberation movements in film. 

Thomas (Marquard Bohm) hitches a ride to Munich where he reunites with his ex-girlfriend Peggy (Uschi Obermaier) and takes refuge in her apartment along with her three other female roommates who have a commune-like arrangement.  Unbeknownst to the unassuming Thomas, these girls are more than just preppy lay abouts but rather are secretly trained assassins who make a pact to murder each other’s boyfriends after five days.  Will the hapless half-bored “hero” of the piece realize in time before it’s too late?  Worst still, the more time Thomas spends hanging out with Peggy rekindling long thought dissolved relations, the more of a viable threat he presents to the assassins who spend their pastimes preparing for the next armed and/or explosive firearms attack. 

 
A German New Wave riff on the female assassins thriller, a nondescript sort of Jazz album of a movie with shades of Jacques Rivette inventive stripped-down playfulness when it isn’t channeling the formalism of Jean-Pierre Melville, Red Sun is more of a stylized pop art collage than a straightforward narrative thriller.  Though easy to follow as a spin on the crime thriller director Rudolf Thome and his cinematographer Bernd Fiedler present this world as a kind of ethereal dreamscape in a heightened reality.  Penned by Max Zihlmann and aided by subtle music extracts from Jean Sibelius with some occasional needle drops, this mostly talky and occasionally startlingly violent cult crime thriller is more about the overall cool aura and vibe of its world than the denouement.  Think of it as a jam session ala Mike Hodges’ surreal crime romp Pulp.
 
Oddly perky when it isn’t reveling in spunky female assassins with a strict code with harsh consequences for those who veer from the pact, Red Sun represents for New German Cinema and its director Rudolf Thome an important, tragically forgotten forward step in a new kind of crime thriller.  With strong willed female characters at the epicenter and a clueless chump being bounced around in it, Red Sun has all the markings of a classy cult gem had it ever had the chance to be seen outside of Europe.  

Unavailable for decades until director Thome and the good folks at Radiance gave it a new skin replete with extensive extras and an audio commentary by Thome, Red Sun now has a chance for modern filmgoers to dive into this glistening, fantastical, strangely beautiful looking hip crime romp that plays fast and loose with the conventions to give us a genre film we can’t say we’ve seen anything exactly like before.

--Andrew Kotwicki