"Jesus Christus Erlöser" or "Jesus Christ Saviour" is a German documentary from 2008, but the contents depicted in here are a lot older, namely from the early 1970s. It is all about infant terrible Klaus Kinski giving us his take on Jesus Christ, the Bible and the New Testament. With this controversial topic and a man like Kinski in charge, you can already imagines how it would turn out. It is a one-man show by Kinski and his performance is constantly interrupted by audience members trying to provoke the artist. And it would not be Kinski if he did not have some nice words for the people disturbing his performance. Occasionally audience members move to the stage and (try to) say a few words. Kinski (in his 40s here) interrupts the show on several occasions and finishes it very late at night in front of a really small group of audience members, those who stayed until the very end. You could certainly criticize the audience on many occasions here and Kinski's reactions or material are also far from flawless, but isn't this exactly what theatre makes so interesting?I am talking about the clash of differing opinions and how they occasionally manage to co-exist and occasionally don't manage to do so. And completely aside from this, I must say I was extremely well-entertained during these 85 minutes. Say what you want about Kinski (and his personal life), but pretty much nobody back then had such entertainment value thanks to his ability to polarize. A big thank you to filmmaker Peter Geyer for using the material from this performance and putting it together into this extremely memorable piece of art. Highly recommended.
Review of Jesus Christus Erlöser
