Musical accompaniment by Guenter Buchwald
Made by the unjustly forgotten Robert Reinert, Opium was the first film to come out of the director’s own production company, aptly named Monumental Films. Set in China, India, and England, it tells a story of addiction, love, and vengeance against a backdrop of opulently imagined worlds, both terrestrial and of the mind. Professor Gesellius studies the effects of the titular drug from a clinical reserve until his life takes a torturous turn and he finds himself dangerously drawn to its hallucinatory relief. When Opium premiered in Berlin, it played three straight weeks at the city’s prestigious Marmorhaus theater. One critic raved that the film “does not disappoint … planned down to the smallest detail, built at great expense, technically perfect, and never boring.” Modern audiences will be most impressed by the stunningly crisp deep-focus photography of cinematographer Helmar Lerski and the trippy drug scenes featuring garland-bedecked nudes of both sexes romping carefree in a forest glade.
Print courtesy of Filmmuseum München
Introduction by Stefan Drössler
Underwritten by the Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts
Copresented by Berlin & Beyond and MiDNiTES for MANiACS