Melzer (1983)

Genres - Comedy  |   Sub-Genres - Comedy of Manners  |   Run Time - 90 min.  |   Countries - Switzerland, Germany  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Eleanor Mannikka

Mauro Melzer (Ruediger Vogler) is an artist whose canvasses are much admired, but who feels his mental stability is wobbly, and so he asks a psychiatric clinic to check him in until he can return to normal. His behavior is, in part, patterned after the famous Swiss writer Robert Walser who was committed for schizophrenia yet who kept on writing and seeing visitors in his confinement. The psychiatrists are not as convinced as Melzer is about his insanity, and they agree that a local gallery should do a retrospective of his work -- they even buy one of his canvasses for the clinic. Melzer is not happy about any of this, and on the evening when a cocktail gathering in the gallery is celebrating the opening of his retrospective, Melzer is out with a prostitute in a dark alley of the city. From his viewpoint, different forms of art sold for money are not so different after all. When Melzer returns to his old apartment, he meets the new tenant, a fairly straightforward young lady -- and the beginnings of a saner Melzer start to dawn.

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Keywords

artist, clinic, insanity, painting, prostitute/prostitution