Nekromantik 2 first published by SciFiNow
Buttgereit’s improbable sequel of transgression, Nekromantik 2 is also a romance. When death-fixated Monika (Monika M.) takes home the cadaver of the first film’s protagonist while also courting porn-dubbing artist Mark (Mark Reeder), we see a woman’s conflicted quest to find her perfect man – even if a certain bloody compromise is required for her to unify the best parts of either imperfect man in her life.
In 1989, between the release of the original Nekromantik (1987) and this film, barriers had come down and Germany had undergone her own reunification. So as the film switches freely between locations in East and West Berlin, an allegorical reading emerges of a bistate, inter-ideological love that dare not speak its name. There are three films within films here, metacinematically triangulating Nekromantik 2‘s place between pornography, arthouse and slaughterhouse. There is also one of the truly all-time great on-screen decapitations.
Strap: In Jörg Buttgereit’s bizarre love triangle, death is not the end.
© Anton Bitel
