Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Red Sun Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 13, 2023

Radiance has been curating both some unusual films as well as some very interesting supplements for their Blu-ray releases, and both of those elements are on display with regard to Red Sun, a frankly weird but provocative German film that may be best appreciated courtesy of either or both of the visual essays Radiance includes on this disc as bonus features. One of the pieces is by Margaret Deriaz and charts the history of the so-called "New German Cinema", while the other, by Johannes von Moltke, focuses more singularly on the film and director Rudolf Thome. One of the long standing conflicts in show business is the perception, right or wrong, that stage work has more "depth" than film work, and in fact there's probably a case to be made that many toiling in the film industry are desperately seeking to deliver the kind of "depth" that stage work supposedly offers. In that regard, it's kind of provocative to hear von Moltke, whose essay is entitled "Rote Sonne: Between Pop Sensibility and Social Critique", argue that Red Sun is a film without any depth whatsoever, with a story and presentational style that are satisfied with surface appearances and really not much else. That might seem like a devastating critique for a film with a somewhat eyebrow raising conceit wherein a group of young females basically goes around executing men with whom they've (briefly) been involved. Von Moltke cites any number of referents when trying to come to terms with Red Sun, including Wim Wenders' somewhat curious pronouncement that the film plays like a "comic strip", though as von Moltke alludes to, Wenders' comparison to colored panels in a strip and the film's interesting use of differently colored walls in back of characters may not be exactly the way Wenders describes it (walls don't actually "change" colors, per Wenders' description of comic strips' variant inkings, there are simply rooms with differently colored walls). Von Moltke also points out any number of clear antecedents which inarguably influenced Red Sun, including a bunch of French New Wave films from the likes of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. He asserts that the French New Wave was already copying noir entries from Hollywood, and that Red Sun is therefore kind of a "copy of a copy". That might help some to understand von Moltke when he mentions, albeit in slightly different terms, that there's an undeniable dissociative quality to Red Sun, due not just to that aforementioned focus on surface qualities, but courtesy of a narrative that maintains a more than discreet distance not just from the characters, but from some of the more disturbing activities in which they're engaged.

The fact that Red Sun features a quartet of often scantily clad women going around offing men might put this squarely in grindhouse territory, or even more traditional suspense-thriller territory, but the film never really exploits either of those approaches. In fact, there's a certain "coolness" to depictions here which, had they been handled by a master like, say, Alfred Hitchcock, might have still retained that clear eyed perspective but offered a bit more "punch". The deaths in the film are almost throwaways at times, which may lead some to wonder why the killings are part of the plot to begin with, but that's just one peculiar element at play.

The four women in the story are Peggy (an almost impossibly gorgeous Uschi Obermaier), Isolde (Gaby Go), Sylvie (Sylvia Kekulé) and Christine (Diana Körner), but anyone wanting and/or needing a bunch of background information on any of these apparent serial killers will not find much in the film. This is especially odd in that the story actually begins with an "outsider" of sorts, a guy named Thomas (Marquard Bohm), who evidently has some kind of history with Peggy and would seem to be the perfect stand in for the audience, allowing a supposedly objective view into a situation that he, like the viewer, is new to. But once again writer Max Zihlmann and director Rudolf Thome defy traditional cinematic expectations, and instead go a kind of quasi-vignette route which in and of itself tends to defy the "logic" of a chronological narrative.

Von Moltke also discusses Rudolf Thome's own comments about the film, including a kind of patently strange description that Thome felt he was crafting a "documentary" about actors appearing in a film about four women on a killing spree, something that is a bit of a head scratcher if thought about too much, but which one way or the other goes to the whole, weird dissociative feeling of distance that Red Sun regularly proffers. Von Moltke's essay also has brief allusions to everything from Roy Lichtenstein to Godard's palette in particular, both of which may point out a certain "pop" sensibility (which von Moltke overtly discusses) to the presentational aspects, if not the "story".

Red Sun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Red Sun is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.67:1. Radiance's insert booklet contains the following notes on the transfer:

Red Sun was restored in 2K from the original camera negative and overseen by Rudolf Thome at Cinegrell Postfactory in Berlin, Germany. Additional restoration was undertaken by Radiance Films in 2022 to remove instances of dirt and scratches at Silver Salt, London.

This is a really beautiful looking transfer, with a nicely lush and rather nuanced accounting of the very interesting palette. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, a lot of the film plays out in an apartment where each room has different colored walls, and more often than not Thome stages things rather simply, with characters just kind of plopped in front of these colored panels in virtual tableaux. The colors themselves can actually be rather subtle, in that there aren't any really bold primaries, though the hues on display are typically very nicely saturated. A number of outdoor scenes pop with considerable authority and the palette is appropriately warm. Detail levels are typically excellent, though things can get a bit fuzzy in some midrange and wide shots. A few passing issues with shadow detail crop up in some dark sequences, notably the opening vignette with Thomas in a car. Grain resolves naturally throughout.

Red Sun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Red Sun features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original German. There's some evident background hiss than can be heard right off the back before Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor starts playing, but the track delivers a nicely full bodied listening experience for what is often a dialogue driven production. Outdoor scenes do offer some appealing ambient environmental sounds, including the "putt putt" of a VW Bug and some urban traffic clamor. Optional English subtitles are available.

Red Sun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Rudolf Thome and Rainer Langhans is in German with English subtitles, and is scene specific, with the option to either play it scene by scene or all one after the other.


• Rote Sonne: Between Pop Sensibility and Social Critique (HD; 20:39) is thought provoking and informative, per my comments above.


• From Oberhausen to the Fall of the Wall (HD; 49:53) is another fantastically interesting piece, this one by Margaret Deriaz, charting German film history largely from the sixties onward.

Additionally, Radiance provides another really nicely appointed insert booklet, with an essay by Samm Deighan, a 1995 interview with Rudolf Thome, an archival pieces, including one by Wim Wenders. Additionally, Radiance's packaging includes a reversible cover and its traditional quasi-Obi strip.

Red Sun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I kept wondering what someone like Roger Corman or even Quentin Tarantino might have done with this basic setup, and this may in fact be a cult film that is ripe for a pointed remake. One way or the other, and especially until a remake ever comes along, Red Sun is almost inherently sui generis, not necessarily in terms of its rather basic plot, but in its almost catatonic observational style of some very peculiar behavior. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very appealing. Recommended.