FILM: Despair (15)
A re-release of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1978 drama with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard, adapted from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
Russian chocolatier Hermann Hermann (Dirk Bogarde) lives with his wife Lydia (Andrea Ferreol) in 1930s Germany, where his mental state is gradually unravelling as the Nazis rise to power.
Convinced that homeless drifter Felix Weber (Klaus Lowitsch) is his doppelganger, Hermann puts his beleaguered spouse through the emotional wringer and slowly loses his temper with the people around him.
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Hide AdAs Hermann loosens his grasp on his sanity, he ignores Lydia’s affair with her cousin Ardalion (Volker Spengler) and fixates on a deranged plot that he believes will end all of his woes.
Released: January 6 (UK, selected cinemas), 119 mins