Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King

Like Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s later epic Our Hitler, Ludwig makes brilliant use of front-projection techniques to present a stylized series of chapters from the inner life of a leader—in this case, “mad” King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–1886)—whose philosophy and worldview embody a summation of Germanic culture and myth. A patron of Richard Wagner and onetime ally of the Austrian Empire before Bavaria was annexed by Prussia, Ludwig is presented here as a sort of tortured witness of future times, with culture changing into barbarism, the Bismarckian state into totalitarianism, and Wagner into the trivial music of the thirties.