Spine 177: The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum

Published: April 15, 2016, 9:19 p.m.

Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta's The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) is a tale of a woman criminalized for normal behavior to the nth degree. But Blum is more than that, as it also tackles the corrupting relationship between law enforcement and the media, and how both forces spread fear through the masses, decimating civil rights under the guise of "anti-terrorism". It's brilliant, hard to watch, and teaches lessons that we continually need reminded of.