In this East German film, the third one in The Third is Margit's third lover. After her mother's death, Margit has two affairs which don't work out, and one lesbian friendship which she retains. She is looking for a husband, though, and thinks she has spotted a candidate in her fellow factory worker. As she contemplates marrying him, her story is told in a series of flashbacks.
Germany6
Germany
On 35mm.
Really bold structurally, seemingly practically improvisational in its editing--so many unexpected excerpting detours--but actually schematic upon reflection. Considered characterization accomplished through/grappling with jumps through decades in Margit's life. Just enough narrative focus for her three husbands to understand why in each circumstance she fell in love, and why the first two relationships ultimately failed.
Wild tonal modulations, antic comedy tumbling into hysterical abjection only to land on wistful acquiescence. Jutta Hoffmann and Barbara Dittus are brilliant, in particular Hoffmann deftly creating Margit from school-age to mid-life both physically and emotionally/spiritually. Whenever the DEFA film archive screens something, I'm there.
HER THIRD is first and foremost a feminist film, it’s about an independent woman striving for her love and happiness after two marriages; it’s also a queer film. The revelation took me off guard since the homosexual sensibility is so subtle that when the two central female characters have their intimate moment finally, I was startled.
But asides from that, HER THIRD is quite “straight”. Throughout the film the main objective of Margit (Jutta Hoffmann), a computer technician with two daughters from her two previous marriage, is to find herself a third husband. Episodes of flashbacks are inserted to provide the background of Margit‘s past, from her mother’s death and her youth in a nun school, to her twice failed…
Her Third Or The Ultimate Seductive Power of Hrdlitschka
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I work in engineering.
I use a computer.
We call him Emil.
I'm a mathematician.
I work, think and feel in accord
with the principles and politics
of the socialist technical revolution.
But if I like a man,
if I need him in my life,
if I want him,
I’ll still make a fool of myself
if I tell him so.
No, to attain my goal
I have to conceal my love
and bury my desire
because it might repel him.
Right?
He's the only one allowed
to be proactive.
I have to wait and be a good girl
like granny was and hope fate is kind.
I have to…
