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Rolf Schübel’s film is inspired by a 1930s American song that allegedly drove people to suicide. A few years back, László (Joachim Król), the Jewish owner of the Restaurant Szábo, saved the life of Hans (Ben Becker) after Hans had thrown himself into the Danube. Hans was heartbroken because Ilona (Erika Marozsán), the beautiful woman László now shares with his pianist, András, had rejected him. Hans (Ben Becker) has returned to Budapest resplendent in his SS uniform, but he proves less than grateful as the lovers’ fragile ménage contends with the Third Reich. In their favor, perhaps, is the title tune, which in this fanciful version of the actual story is composed by András. He was the Marilyn Manson of his day, for the song became a worldwide hit, inspiring, so the legend goes, countless suicides around the world (Billie Holiday’s version is like a beckoning revolver at 4 a.m.). Schübel’s film doesn’t quite live up to the song, though its moments of near-farcical melodrama (the opening scene, for one) are tempered by a tone of sardonic irony and wistful weltschmerz. In German with English subtitles. (114m) At the Kendall Square.
BY PETER KEOUGH
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