Look, I wanted to keep the Christmas train rolling. I am sure many others wanted me to keep the Christmas train rolling. But Mubi options can be slim sometimes, especially when you're trying to keep things within a certain theme. So here we are. From Christmas cheer and loads of fake snow to a grimy serial killer movie that will make you want to bathe in bleach once you've watched it.
Hamburg in the 1970s doesn't seem like a nice place to be, not if you're going by the squalor and misery depicted in The Golden Glove, a cinematic look at the opportunism and madness of serial killer Fritz Honka (Jonas Dassler). The film is named after the drinking establishment that Honka would frequent, spending time with others looking to drown their sorrows and maybe give one another companionship, and it's where he picked up a number of his victims. Uncomfortable and grimy throughout, this is the kind of film that I would class as both an essential watch, for those who can handle the subject matter, and something that you will never want to revisit, despite the strength of the main performances.
Based on the book by Heinz Strunk, detailing the crimes of Honka, writer-director Fatih Akin (known to me already for the excellent In The Fade) doesn’t waste any time in dragging viewers by the scruff of the neck into an extremely unpleasant and dangerous environment, showing the first fatal assault within the very first scenes of the film. Everyone knows who the dangerous predator is from the beginning, which allows us to feel sympathy for those around him who are oblivious to the awful truth.
With prosthetics used to disfigure his face, Dassler gives a perfect performance in the lead role, showing someone who is both pathetic and full of rage at all times, only able to feel powerful and focused when dealing with someone even more pathetic than himself. There are a number of victims shown, one or two lucky enough to escape, but the most memorable is Gerda, played by Margaret Tiesel. Tiesel is almost as good as Dassler, and her character is so sad and lonely that her potential fate feels all the more upsetting. We see her being used, manipulated, and simply kept around until Honka decides that she can’t do any more for him, but her passive nature and desperate attempt to avoid loneliness stops her from realising how dangerous the situation is.
It’s hard to write more about The Golden Glove without feeling as if you’re going to infect everyone else with the unclean and abrasive nature of the material, but that’s testament to how Akin has presented everything. Almost every interaction between characters is uncomfortable, whether it is Honka after his next victim or younger people who end up drinking in a place they would be best avoiding, and viewers get to watch events unfold in a way that, as is so often the case with the benefit of hindsight, makes it strange to consider how it took so long to catch the killer.
Compelling, disturbing, and brilliant, this is a film I highly recommend to those with the stomach for it. It doesn’t sensationalize things, it doesn’t go too far in how it makes Honka a fully fleshed-out character, and it serves as a reminder of how the more vulnerable and dismissed members of our society so often fall into the hands of exploitative and deadly men.
9/10
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