Die Reinheit des Herzens (1980)

Lisa and Jean are two “typical” representatives of the moderate, established left in the Federal Republic of Germany during the social-liberal era (1969 to 1982). Since their student days and time in the extra-parliamentary opposition in the late 1960s, they have defined themselves as cosmopolitan and liberal, enlightened and tolerant. They are well educated, love classical music as well as modern chansons, and work in the arts and letters. Planning a trip to socialist Cuba while wearing traditional, quintessentially Bavarian dirndls on an alpine pasture is no contradiction for them. While Jean writes, his partner Lisa is busy selling his books, along with those of other authors, to a culturally minded, educated bourgeois readership. Their circle of acquaintances is much like them and enjoys being able to count itself among the intellectual elite. Yet much of this carefully displayed self-image is pure façade, and the film takes evident pleasure in meticulously dissecting it through a pivotal event. In the end, Jean and Lisa are nothing more than two former student activists of the ’68 generation who have made themselves comfortable in the West German society they once condemned as “reactionary” and fought so vehemently, forgetting—or even betraying—their ideals in favor of a well-tempered bourgeois respectability. Jean’s definition of tolerance goes so far that he not only rejects any supposed claim of ownership over his partner, but practically pushes Lisa into the arms of Karl, a habitual layabout and book thief. Jean believes this makes him true to his supposedly tolerant idea of an “open relationship,” especially since, in Jean’s eyes, the more down-to-earth Karl poses no real threat to him—a view born of intellectual arrogance. Karl does not let the opportunity he has been given—to have Lisa all to himself and sleep with her—pass him by. Jean is all the more disconcerted that his generosity is by no means rewarded: when he also seeks a ménage à trois in bed, he is rejected. Jean’s world falls apart, and in a fit of self-destructive rage he wrecks their shared apartment and unsuccessfully tries to kill himself. Lisa is torn and cannot choose between the two very different men. Finally, in an act of desperation, she kills Karl and returns to Jean, but by then their relationship has long since been destroyed …