Sugar Baby

Dir: Percy Adlon/West Germany/1985/86 mins/subtitles

Lps: Marianne Sägebrecht, Eisi Gulp

German title: Zuckerbaby

Marianne is 38, fat, lonely and depressed. She works as an undertaker's assistant handling corpses, and this causes her to be looked on with disdain. One day, hearing the rock 'n' roll song 'Sugar Baby', she is reminded of her lost youth and shakes herself from her lethargic state. She sees a young underground train driver and instantly falls in love with him. Determined to meet him, she takes five weeks holiday and sets about tracking him down by any means possible.

This film can best be described as a sad comedy. Marianne presents an image of hopeless stagnation, out of which she is broken by her love-at-first-sight for the married 25-year old Eugen, so that she can recapture her lost youth. We can only sympathise with Eugen who gallantly copes with her hideously excessive weight, true love overcoming all bounds for the two unfortunate and rather ineffectual characters. 

DSz

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