Roland Klick’s Supermarkt (1974) is a frantic portrait of life on the fringes of Hamburg. Klick’s film interrogates the political responsibility of the middle class for those outside the societal margins. Supermarkt is a bleak, nihilistic portrait of desperation.
The film was photographed by Paul Verhoeven collaborator Jost Vacano. Vacano’s camera is kinetic as it pursues characters down alleyways, across busy streets and into the heart of poverty stricken Hamburg. Like sharks the characters will die if they stop running, chasing what little they can scrape together. The hand-helm maneuvers of Vacano’s camera brings the spectator into intimate spaces with characters actively lashing out violently, looking to grab a hold of something, anything.
Marius West’s poppy theme song “Celebration” plays intermittently as the theme for Willi (Charly Wierczejewski) as he tries to pull his life together. It’s a song that is at odds with Klick’s nihilism. It is a tune that suggests Willi’s dreams and desires that always elude him. The song, coming over the soundtrack diegetically and non-diegetically at times, is a reminder that hopes and desires are as fleeting and plastic as the film itself.
Supermarkt is one of those intimate character portraits ripped from the headlines of the day. It was a common practice in the New German Cinema movement to look at journalism and dramatize stories. These snapshots films take on the urgency of reporting; taking reality and reflecting back a dynamic portrait of poverty.
