Graf Porno is a real playboy who makes money out of everything that falls into his hands. During great sex parties he puts his girls on and afterwards everything that is not nailed down is missing. Harry Holst, on the other hand, is a young man who has successfully completed a correspondence course as a private detective and is now waiting for clients…waiting and waiting.
Two women, one from Boston and one from Germany, flee their empty lives to seek fulfillment in Mexico. The Black Angel is a transitional film; on one hand, it is a companion piece to Willow Springs, featuring two Schroeter regulars as characters far from home and in extremis; on the other hand, it is a film essay about Mexico and as such a harbinger of Schroeter’s nonfiction work to come. While he clearly shares his characters’ fascination with Mexico, the filmmaker also savages touristic exoticism – the otherworldly appearances of his protagonists and their rapturous reactions to new surroundings contrast sharply with the sober perceptions of Mexican history and economics featured in the documentary segments and in the prosaic presence of a non-professional cast of locals. – Harvard Film Archive
Two women, one from Boston and one from Germany, flee their empty lives to seek fulfillment in Mexico. The Black Angel is a transitional film; on one hand, it is a companion piece to Willow Springs, featuring two Schroeter regulars as characters far from home and in extremis; on the other hand, it is a film essay about Mexico and as such a harbinger of Schroeter’s nonfiction work to come. While he clearly shares his characters’ fascination with Mexico, the filmmaker also savages touristic exoticism – the otherworldly appearances of his protagonists and their rapturous reactions to new surroundings contrast sharply with the sober perceptions of Mexican history and economics featured in the documentary segments and in the prosaic presence of a non-professional cast of locals. – Harvard Film Archive
