The Desert of Love (Die Liebeswüste) with short: The Last Rendezvous

The Last Rendezvous: A first film by Ismet Elci, starring Elci and Lothar Lambert and edited by Lambert. (1986, c. 10 mins, In German with English subtitles, Color) The Desert of Love Lothar Lambert's latest foray into the gutter side of life finds Ulrike S. strolling out of a mental institution with nothing on under her big mac, provoking all and sundry in a Berlin that is far more insane and unfeeling than anything she might have dreamed up on the inside. But the real nightmare of this production was Lambert's own, when half of his footage was destroyed by the lab. Now a Lothar Lambert film (Paso Doble, Drama in Blonde, etc.), almost by definition, cannot be re-shot, dependent as it is on the creative combustion of the moment. Lambert seems to have picked himself up off the cutting room floor with a most unusual solution, one which utilizes the salvaged footage and adds an ingenious new dimension as well: Lambert invited his stars into the editing room to view the film and recorded their comments. What would be unworkable with any other cast turns out to be an amalgam of hilarity and profundity in the hands of Lambert and his stock actors. Dieter Schidor, in the film-within-a-film playing a gay man on the prowl for love, and Dorothy Moritz, playing a window-sitting voyeur perched with a view of the corner pissoir, join Ulrike S., Dagmar Beiersdorf and Albert Heins in a runaway commentary that is deftly cut into the fictional narrative. They cover a variety of topics from cinema and censorship to sex and love...and yes, Lothar Lambert, in depth. (Note: Our print, the only one available, is of poor quality.)

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