Dr. Mabuse (Delphine Seyrig), the president of a multinational press conglomerate, has an unscrupulous plan for the company’s business expansion: to create and control a human being. “Dorian Gray: young, wealthy, handsome. We shall construct him, corrupt him, and destroy him.” Roswitha Mueller wrote, “[Ulrike] Ottinger’s ironic references to the world of [Fritz Lang’s] Dr. Mabuse align past with modern apprehensions about the function of the media, at the same time as they call into question the myth of total manipulation.