Tuesday, 6 July 2021

Der Fan, 1982


Der Fan is a film from (the then) West Germany about a young teenage girl, Simone played by Désirée Nosbusch who is obsessed with the popstar known as R. She eats, sleeps and breathes R and writes fan letters to him as any other obsessed teen probably would have back before the days of the internet!

It gets to the point where her obsession has taken over her life and she cannot function normally. Her fixation is enough that one day she skips school to travel to a television studio where R is doing a signing session.

She eventually due to fainting in front of R, finally gets his attention and offers to come in to the studio to see him perform and later takes her back to his place, where he eventually sleeps with her.

The next day Simone is dismayed when she concludes she has been used by R and that he does not care for her as much as she cares for him. Being to much for her to take she kills R and over the period of a few days dismembers R, cooks, and eats his remains.

The film ends with a Simone now bald after shaving her head and back at home writing a letter to R, saying he will always be a part of her and indicates that she may be carrying his child...

First time I saw Der Fan I was quite lost for words at how it ends in such a grim way, mean R does deserve his demise for being a person who would use a fan like he did! Think it may shock people with Simone being a schoolgirl and doing what she does.

I guess it highlights that no matter what year it was, famous blokes have always been arseholes when it comes to taking advantage of people. There are some scenes that are a bit hmm as I think Désirée Nosbusch was only 16 at the time she filmed this and Bodo Steiger who played R was a lot older. I read somewhere Désirée tried to stop this film coming out years later due the nudity scenes, maybe due to her age at the time but I haven’t been able to find the article I read that to add to this or confirm.

Bodo Steiger at the time was in fact a pop star and his band Rheingold did the soundtrack to the film.


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