Der Bräutigam, die Komödiantin und der Zuhälter

This is a good example of how inventive the short film format may be;much is condensed into the twenty-three minute running time, making this film seem much longer than its duration would suggest.The film has its roots in a theatre production of a play by the Austrian playwright Ferdinand Bruckner which Straub had been asked to direct by a German theatre company.He considered the play too verbose and cut its length from several hours down to just ten minutes,and it is the production of this play which forms the centrepiece of the film. The film begins with a long,hypnotic tracking shot along a Munich street frequented by prostitutes.This short scene is followed by the ten minute play which stars a young Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Hanna Schygulla.The next two scenes seem to belong in a different film completely.They concern an actress and her black boyfriend whom her pimp is trying to kill before her wedding,hence the film's title.Eventually the narrative logic begins to make sense as the girl is a prostitute and her pimp was one of the characters featured in the play. While most directors would have needed several hours to make sense of this plot,Straub miraculously manges to make all the disparate elements play off against each other in an enthralling experimental work which may be one of his greatest achievements.