A Very Perfect Couple
Featurefilm
Germany 1974
16 mm
90 min
B/W
Optical sound

Crew

Buch und Regie
Ula Stöckl
Kamera
André Dubreuil, Alfred Hürmer
Ton
Friedrich Bischoff
Musik
Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland
Bühne
Harald Kröger
Kostüme
Monika Grube
Maske
Horst Allert
Requisite
Milo Leske
Produktionsleitung
Brigitte Pospiech
Regieassistenz
Wolfgang Bergmann
Aufnahmeleitung
Ralf Odenwald
Schnitt
Heidi Genée
Produktion
Ula Stöckl Filmproduktion/ WDR
Redaktion
Joachim von Mengershausen

Cast

Angela Krieg
Doris Kunstmann
Robert Krieg
Gerd Baltus
Claudia,
Roberts Freundin
Susanne Schaefer
Jim, Angelas Freund
Hans-Peter Hallwachs
Andreas
Christoph Quest
Sekretärin von Angela
Astrid Mayer-Gossler
Interviewpartnerin
Inken Sommer
Interviewpartnerin
Antje Doutiné
Journalist
Klaus Ellrodt
Interviewpartner
Christian Rode

Festival Participation

28. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin,
Retrospektive 1978
2. Festival International De Films De Femmes,
Sceaux/Paris 1980
1. Il Gocio dello Speccio, Firenze 1980
40 recontres cinématographiques de
Boulogne sur Mer le cinéma allemand 1980
4. Festival International des Films de Femmes,
Brüssel 1981
Goethe Institut: Toulouse 1980, Rom 1980, Neapel 1980
Deutsches Filmmuseum Frankfurt am Main,
Retrospektive 1988
Werkschau Babylon, Berlin, 1995

Contents

Angela and Robert have been married for 10 years and are still very much in love with each other. They give each other complete freedom. They advise each other on their professions. In other words a perfect couple. Their happiness is not disrupted when Robert brings his young friend Claudia home for the weekend. Yet very soon Claudia becomes, for Robert, the woman with whom he would like to "start everything afresh with". According to a mutual agreement between Angela and Robert, which stipulated that despite infidelities all means are allowed to keep the marriage going, Angela gets "rid of" Claudia. Robert thanks her for this decision with extra tender love. A while later however Angela falls in love with a doctor from the jungle and decides to leave Robert. She desperately waits for Robert to fetch her back. She wants him to act according to their agreement. Yet surprisingly Robert backs out of the marriage.

The Film

01: Doris Kunstmann loves the simple life (interview with the lead actress Doris Kunstmann) "The film is as beautiful as your upbringing allows it to be," the artist says. "It is a film in which dreams and desires play a major role, a poetic film." One example of its poetic artifices is a house full of roses in the middle of the winter. She doesn't see "A Very Perfect Couple" as a contribution to the discussion of emancipation. "The film is about partnership and how two people live together," she says. "I try to get round that. I am a completely independent person, who has to make her own decisions. You could say that I am emancipated." "Can you imagine ever being in a marriage like Angela's?" "No!"
WDR Exclusiv
to top

Press

01: This is the comic story of how an open-minded couple, he a psychologist and she a t.v. marriage guidance counselor, "solve" their problems. ..." A Very Perfect Couple" highlights how ridiculous and superficial counseling is, and makes its dubious nature more than clear. The style is reminiscent of and a homage to Claude Chabrol. "I would like, just once, to make a film that is like his." What are missing are the financial resources necessary for this type of spectacular film.
Ck, Hamburger Abendblatt, 11.04.1974
to top

02: What makes "Perfect Couple" interesting is the juxtaposition of the cozy domestic sphere with the social criticism of the professional world. One minute you feel like you are in a tacky love story, the next you are watching a classy crime film, or a society drama screenplay. What are astounding is that all the various scenes and styles merge and that at the end of it the entire love story holds the balance. Ula Stöckl is not campaigning for women's liberation, or for that matter for men's liberation. She simply shows how women and men occupy very different emotional worlds, and therefore have different needs as far as expression of affection goes - despite every attempt to be tolerant.
Micheline Gierke, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18.04.1974
to top

03: Ula Stöckl's film is an almost perfect satire of modern middle-class ideologies, demonstrating how similar these ideologies are to Chabrol's grotesquely overblown melodramas.
Koc, Frankfurter Rundschau, 10.04.1974
to top

uwe.boek

This is the comic story of how an open-minded couple, he a psychologist and she a t.v. marriage guidance counselor, "solve" their problems. ..."A very Perfect Couple" highlights how ridiculous and superficial counseling is, and makes its dubious nature more than clear. The style is reminiscent of and a homage to Claude Chabrol. "I would like, just once, to make a film that is like his." What are missing are the financial resources necessary for this type of spectacular film.
Ck, Hamburger Abendblatt