Rosa von Praunheim: Tough Love

In this intense docudrama about former karate world champion and pimp Andreas Marquardt, von Praunheim adopts a new, austere visual style that powerfully conveys the disturbing link between childhood sexual abuse and male violence.

Tough Love tells the true story of Berlin karate world champion and former pimp Andreas Marquardt. As an infant, he is subjected to severe violence by his father; later, his mother physically abuses and sexually exploits him for years. Although he eventually manages to escape her direct abuse as a young adult, he remains trapped by her influence. Through karate, he becomes involved in the criminal underworld, first working as a debt collector and eventually becoming a brutal pimp. Using a mixture of affection, violence, humiliation, and emotional deprivation, he binds women to him, including his later partner Marion Erdmann. He amasses considerable wealth until an assault charge leads to his arrest. His subsequent prison sentence becomes a turning point in his life. Von Praunheim bases the film on Marquardt’s autobiography, written together with the therapist who encouraged him during his imprisonment to confront his experiences of abuse. Following a rigorous formal structure, the film moves between past and present: staged, theatrical scenes in stark black-and-white and stylised interiors trace Marquardt’s transformation from an abused child into a violent manipulator. In contrast, documentary sequences filmed in colour show him after his release from prison, working as a karate instructor for children and revisiting places from his past. Throughout the film, Marquardt and Marion Erdmann address the camera directly, reflecting on their experiences and on how, in different ways, they managed to break free from the cycle of abuse and violence and ultimately find their way back to each other.

Thanks to its rigorous aesthetic approach, the film powerfully conveys both the disturbing perfidy of sexual abuse and the cruelty of physical and psychological violence, while maintaining enough distance for viewers to grasp the destructive relationship between the two. Von Praunheim’s move towards a more restrained style was widely praised by critics, as were the outstanding performances he elicited from his professional cast, especially Katy Karrenbauer as the mother, Hanno Koffler as Andreas Marquardt, and Luise Heyer as Marion.

Germany 2015, colour, DCP (original format: HD), 89 min., with English subtitles.
Director: Rosa von Praunheim, Screenplay: Nico Woche, Jürgen Lemke, Rosa von Praunheim, based on the book Harsh: My Way Out of the Vicious Circle of Violence by Andreas Marquardt with Jürgen Lemke, Cinematography: Nicolai Zörn, Elfi Mikesch, Lighting Design: Elfi Mikesch, Sound: Thomas Schrader, Timo Kahlenberg, Lilly Grote, Costume Design: Ingrid Buhrmann, Christian Fritz, Make-up: Beatrice Mendelin, Silvia Schwarzer, Music: Andreas Wolter, Editing/Post-production: Mike Shephard, Assistant Editor: André Krummel, Sound Mixing: Christian Wilmes, Commissioning Editors: Götz Schmedes (WDR), Cooky Ziesche and Jens Stubenrauch (RBB), Barbara Häbe (ARTE), Production Companies: Rosa von Praunheim Filmproduktion in co-production with WDR, RBB, ARTE. With: Andreas Marquardt, Marion Erdmann, and the actors Hanno Koffler, Luise Heyer, Katy Karrenbauer, Rüdiger Götze, Ilse Amberger Bendin.