Ugly, Dirty and Bad

Actors behind glass. What happens in their wide living container can only be seen, it can hardly be heard. Only when a door is opened do words emerge. Usually “shut the door!” In Ettore Scola’s lowlife film comedy “Ugly, Dirty and Bad” the camera was always up close. Karin Beier breaks the audience’s view and makes issues of voyeurism and the perception of the lower classes as evident in many shows by private TV companies. Everyone is after money. As soon as grandma’s pension arrives, she is robbed by the rest of the family and everyone goes out shopping. Desperation turns into grotesque, not even rat poison will kill the tyrant of the family and the foiled murderess, his wife, laughs about it. A hellish laugh, bitter, hopeless, in recognition of her own ridiculousness. The magnificent company live in their roles, as human animals, driven by meanness and greed, in the margins of civilization, the explosives of society.