Exzellenz Unterrock

A labyrinthine tapestry of Weimar-era subversion, *Exzellenz Unterrock* reconfigures the patriarchal architecture of early 20th-century cinema by positioning women in positions of institutional authority, their tailored suits and resolute gazes clashing with the era’s rigid gender norms. Herzfeld’s direction, both austere and avant-garde, crafts a narrative where power dynamics are inverted; Marion Regler’s protagonist, a magistrate donning a meticulously pleated skirt, navigates a judicial system she both upends and mirrors. The film’s visual lexicon—shadowed courtrooms, stark monochromatics, and the recurring motif of a broken pocket watch—symbolizes the fracture between tradition and progress. Annemarie Loose’s supporting role as a rebellious typist, her fingers smudging ink while drafting subversive decrees, becomes a metonym for the silent revolution of women in the bureaucratic machinery. The score, a dissonant blend of cello and typewriter keys, underscores the tension between order and chaos, while Ekert’s cinematography captures the claustrophobia of power through tight close-ups and oblique angles. A precursor to the New Wave’s gender politics, the film’s audacity lies in its refusal to sanitize its message, instead presenting a world where authority is gendered yet destabilized by the very women it seeks to constrain. The final scene—a woman in a judge’s robe ascending a staircase, her shadow elongated against a flickering bulb—lingers as a testament to both triumph and transience.