Die Flambierte frau = A Woman in flames

A raw analysis of class, gender and sex, ‘Women in Flames’ centres on Eva, who one day, without warning, walks out of her stultifying middle-class marriage and into the world of high-class prostitution. Soon she begins an intense relationship with Chris, a fellow prostitute. They move in together but tensions emerge as Eva embraces her sexual freedom and sheds her middle-class moral scruples and Chris’s possessive instincts surface. Set almost entirely in fashionable interiors, stylishly photographed, and with music by Peer Raben the film begs comparison with Fassbinder’s work. Yet Van Ackeren’s film lacks Fassbinder’s assured hand. Cool and distanced, his study of a middle and upper class world ruled by money, power, and sex - where the unexpected and bizarre lie just beneath the tranquil surface, hovers uncertainly between voyeurism and social criticism.

Credits: Director, Robert van Ackeren ; writers, Robert van Ackeren, Catherina Zwerenz ; photography, Jurgen Jurges ; editing, Tanja Schmidbauer ; music, Peer Raben.
Cast: Gudrun Landgrebe, Mathieu Carriere, Hanns Zischler, Gabriele Lafari, Matthias Fuchs.