The subtitle of Jean Marie Straub and Dani è le Huillet's first feature film in 1965, "A Place where Only Violence Can Help Violent Rule," hinted at the intense political program sparked by their rigorous aesthetic. This movie is set in Cologne, using Heinrich Bell's novel "9:30 Billiards" as an excuse. They attribute it to some naked events and shoot the movie from a confrontational perspective, similar to Bartok's music with decorative soundtracks. The most subtle clues are accompanied by complex flashbacks in the story. Middle aged Robert F ä hmel told a young hotel attendant about the persecution during the Third Empire; His elderly father Heinrich was an architect famous for the local monastery. He recalled the militarism of World War I, when his wife Johanna got into trouble for insulting the emperor. The third generation F ä hmel is considering architecture, and just as Robert's late wife's exiled brother returned, their former tormentor, now a West German official, is participating in a veterans' celebration parade. Straub and Whitlett made the hierarchy of history live in the present tense, and they made harsh judgments about it. The oppressive performance and redundant and tense visual rhetoric indicate a state of moral crisis, as well as the style and substantive response it requires.
