A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 26, 2022

Akira Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece Rashomon famously presents a conundrum whereby the audience isn't quite sure whose "version" of calamitous events is the "truth". Something quite similar is at play with regard to A Knife in the Head, though in this particular instance, unlike in Rashomon, imagine that the "victim" of the "murder" is still alive, but suffering from a debilitating brain injury as the result of having been shot in an alleged protest. That means his "version" of events is at least as questionable, and arguably more so, than some other folks' accounts of what happened. This is an often fascinating film that tends to blend an almost cinéma vérité approach with regard to the effects of the brain injury and subsequent slow and tortured recovery of the protagonist, with a somewhat more politically charged story that might seem eerily prescient for those who tend to subscribe to conspiracy theories involving those in power, specifically in this case, the police.

Kurosawa's film is often hailed as a paradigm of ambiguity and "relative truth", if that's an acceptable description. Kind of interestingly, then, A Knife in the Head was evidently criticized at the time of its release for some of that same perceived lack of clear narrative exposition, in terms of one narrative being the focal point. But for those who have seen Rashomon, a central question that is at the core of that film may also be at play here, even if A Knife in the Head kind of wants to have its "multiverse" cake and eat it, too, so to speak. That central question boils down to "whom, if anyone, do you believe?"

Berthold Hoffmann (Bruno Ganz) is a scientist who is in the throes of some apparent marital dysfunction as the film opens, but that doesn't stop him from attempting to see if his wife Ann (Angela Winkler) is okay during a police raid of a suspected left wing hideout. While the chaotic scene quickly unfolds, it seems like Ann and Hoffmann (even his wife refers to him by his surname) pass like veritable ships in the night, though a freeze frame stops the action just short of what seems like it's about to be a "police response" to Hoffmann breaking through the cordon to get inside to see what's going on. That leads to a quick credits sequence which then just as quickly segues to an obviously very badly injured Hoffmann being wheeled on a gurney into an operating room.

The upshot (no gun pun intended) is that Hoffmann has been shot in the head by a policeman and that he is paralyzed and speechless as a result. The film then kind of strangely if rather interestingly begins to ply a kind of dual track where Hoffmann's recovery is documented while the police attempt to build a case that he wasn't randomly assaulted by one of their own. A subplot involving Ann's dalliance with a guy named Volker (Heinz Hoenig) plays into the proceedings as well.

On one level, it seems like A Knife in the Head is decidedly more overt about what's going on than Rashomon, but I'd suggest an at least intermittent questioning "Is it?" might be in order. It certainly looks like Hoffmann is the unwitting victim (in more ways than one) of a perhaps ludicrous police conspiracy, and yet there are hints that Hoffmann may not be the rational scientist he at least was before his injury. That might be best summed up by the very line the character utters in the film, which suggests he might be something like the Dustin Hoffman character in Straw Dogs, a seemingly mild mannered man who has been pushed to the point of no return and ultimately gives in to more feral impulses. One way or the other that's kind of the way the story ends up, though once again as in the freeze frame right before the credits, an actual on screen depiction of events isn't offered.

Kind of interestingly, if also frankly bafflingly (at least to this reviewer), some supplemental material here briefly compares the film to a "modern update" of the story told in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. I'm not quite sure what the connection might be, but it might be that aforementioned feral tendency on the part of Hoffmann.

A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Knife in the Head is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cohen Film Collection, an imprint of Cohen Media Group, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. (Per recent Cohen tradition, this is also "sub-branded" as one of Cohen's Classics of German Cinema.) The front cover announces a new 4K restoration, though doesn't provide any further information. This is a nicely organic looking presentation that offers secure detail levels almost all of the time, save for a few selected nighttime scenes where fine detail understandable recedes. While a lot of this transfer boasts a rather warm palette, there are some noticeable variances in color temperature throughout the presentation, with several scenes looking decidedly cooler, even tinged with blue, and with some of the hospital material in particular not offering the same general levels of saturation that other scenes in the film do.

A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Knife in the Head features an LPCM 2.0 track in the original German. The back cover of this release touts the first solo score by Irmin Schmidt, co=founder of what the cover calls the "legendary krautrock band Can", and the score provides a good deal of energy, especially in the midrange and low end. This is nonetheless a more dialogue driven outing, and the track supports all of the spoken material without any issues whatsoever. This is another Cohen release of a foreign language film where the label has authored the disc with forced English subtitles.

A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Richard Hauff (HD; 25:39) features the director of the film and gives some interesting background on some "real life" events that sparked the writing of the screenplay, as well as its production. Subtitled in English.


• Interview with Eberhard Junkersdorf (HD; 13:35) features the film's producer and focuses on Junkersdorf's involvement in the project. Subtitled in English.

A Knife in the Head Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the fascinating things about Rashomon is that it made no bones that it was offering radically different "takes" on what was supposedly the same event. What's kind of a bit of subterfuge with regard to A Knife in the Head is that it seems to be painting one picture which, at least when compared to Rashomon, might be more "straightforward", but where the film still drops little hints that Hoffmann might have more than merely a debilitating brain injury to contend with. Ganz is really amazing in the film, and what are almost more documentary like sequences depicting his therapies are a fascinating counterpoint to the story of political scheming from those on both the left and right. Technical merits are generally solid and the two interviews included as supplements very interesting. Recommended.