The word beautiful is something not many people may wish to place as a description for his films. However, Jorg’s films are filled with the swimming beauty of loss and sadness. Nekromantik is a tragic love story, Nekromantik 2 shows the effects on a person who discards their true love for one expected by society, Schramm is a tale of a lonely man (who loves to kill) and his non-ability to approach the girl he likes. It’s the visuals, the sweeping camera angles, and especially, the music which turns these films into concepts of tragedy.

DER TODESKING was made by the director right after his notorious NEKROMANTIK and it seems that a lot of people call this film here his masterpiece but I'd argue that it's not nearly as good as the film that came before it. With that said, not too many filmmakers would make an entire movie based around suicide since, obviously, the story isn't going to go over well with the masses but it probably wouldn't go over too well even inside the horror community. Der Todesking (translated as the King of Death, or The Death King) is an anthology which explores death. Suicide and murder features very heavily as you can imagine (It’s a Jörg Buttgereit movie, could you visualize a world where he didn’t push those two realities into your face???!!) The first and the best of the episodes is Monday where we watch a man as he methodically cleans his apartment, has a meal, feeds the goldfish and calls to say he is not coming in to work. He then strips and gets into the bath and takes several handfuls of pills and drinks what appears to be some poison before expiring. This documenting of the lead-up to a suicide is undeniably effective in Buttgereit’s calm, matter-of-fact tone where his camera remains merely a passive observer. Michael Krause shoots himself after Susanne Betz gives him a gin in the Wednesday episode From Bundy to Lautréamont: Jörg Buttgereit interviewed at the 2016 Manchester Festival of Fantastic Films (the same place where Der Todesking had its British premiere on 14 October 1990)

Reviews

Each section moving forward spins off on a similar theme of death and dying, telling a different story of someone’s “end,” be it murder, suicide, or other. As I mentioned before, they aren’t so much brutal to see, but more depressing and realistic. Some of the segments are even linked to the first one; for example, “Tuesday” follows a man from his mailbox to a video store, where he rents an Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS-looking Nazisploitation film and talks of the suicide note he received in the mail with the clerk. He then goes home, grabs some beers, and watches as female Nazi soldiers cut off a man penis on his television. When his wife comes home with the groceries and complains that he doesn’t do anything, he shoots her, then puts a frame around the blood splatter that her brain and skull left on the wall. Sex, murder, art. Audio commentary with Buttgereit, co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen and actors Monika M. and Mark Reeder Der Todesking is one of Buttgereit's most accessible films. That could be the very reason why I was so disappointed with it when I first saw it. After the filth and carnage of Nekromantik, Der Todesking seemed almost timid. The film is a collection of vignettes relating to suicide and death, linked by footage of a rotting corpse. The gore is very mild in comparison to Joerg's other movies and the violence is largely implicit. Strangely enough, the film has grown on me immensely over time and despite my initial misgivings, I now consider it to be my favourite Buttgereit opus.

Two short films by Manfred Jelinski: Orpheus in der Oberwelt (1970, 31 mins) and Ein Ku'ze' Film übe' Hambu'g (1990, 5 mins) Two short films by producer Manfred O. Jelinski: Die Reise ins Licht (1972, 27 mins) viewable with optional audio commentary, and Geliebter Wahnsinn (1973, 7 mins) Skeleton Beneath the Skin: Graham Rae on the phenomenon of Todesking tattoos (plus, tattoo gallery) This is a cerebral and beautifully constructed film. Buttgereit has always exceeded in making the most repulsive act (having a threesome with a rotting corpse, for example) visually appealing. This film is no exception, containing some truly brilliant imagery. The scene where a man shoots his wife and then puts an empty picture frame on the blood splattered wall is one example, the man who screams and beats his head against a wall for literally five minutes is another. The film also benefits from a higher standard of acting than some of Buttgereit's other films. The director himself even has a nice cameo in the Ilsa inspired video.Der Todesking' is my first experience with Jorg Buttgereit. I have no idea whether it is representative of his other work or not, but after watching this puzzling movie I intend finding out. A verbal description of this movie does it very little justice. Scenes of suicides by various individuals are interspersed with footage of a decomposing corpse. That really gives you NO idea how thought provoking, repellant AND beautiful this movie is in places. Commentary by Buttgereit and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen – This English language commentary originally appeared on the German special edition DVD. It is quite informative and valuable, considering that almost all of the other supplements here were made almost 30 years ago.

On Monday, a hard-working white collar worker climbs into a bath and takes a lethal overdose of pills. The king of death resides resplendent on his throne, it will not be too long before you sit at his feet, it could happen in an instant, a heartbeat. It could take a long suffocating agony, the release from which you find yourself begging for. What happens after a final breath is taken nobody truly knows; nothingness is most likely. Welcome to Der Todesking (1990) Jorg Buttgereit’s unflinching look at the futility of life and death, this is not a feel good movie, be warned. Following on from his transgressive and seminal feature Nekromantik (1987) Buttgereit delved deeper into taboo subjects with this meditative study of death. It follows in the footsteps of the mondo and documentary styled films that sprang up in the 70’s such as the renowned Faces Of Death series, themselves stemming from the works of Italian filmmakers Jacopetti and Prosperi such as Mondo Cane (1962). After a rapid and underground (i.e. banned in countries like the UK) influx of such films taking things as far as they could go, they pretty much died a natural death themselves. Their audience had been satiated by stark and sobering images that even went as far as depicting the mysteries of what happens when the body is left on the slab for autopsy and embalmment.

DER TODESKING is not one of my favorite Jorg Buttgereit film - but still is an interesting film dealing with suicide and it's reasons and ramifications. Those looking for a gore-fest, or exploitation in the style of the NEKROMANTIK films or SCHRAMM will probably be disappointed. DER TODESKING is definitely an "art-house" style film, so those that need linear, explainable narratives need not apply... A long continuous rotating shot of a room with a man doing different things at different times of the day. Lots of rehearsals probably went into this to make sure the actor got his timing right. Jesus – Der Film (1986, 1 min) – a short piece directed by Jörg Buttgereit as part of a 1986 experimental movie of the same name by German filmmaker Michael Bynntrup

German director Jörg Buttgereit became a cult figure for his uncompromising films. Buttgereit first created an outrage with his necrophilia film NEKRomantik (1987) and its sequel NEKRomantik 2 (1991), which featured no holds barred scenes of people having sex with corpses. Der Todesking (The Death King) was Buttgereit’s second film and he has since made a number of other films, including Schramm (1993) about a serial killer; Captain Berlin vs Hitler (2009); and the Final Girl episode of the horror anthology German Angst (2015), as well as Monsterland (2009), a documentary about genre cinema. The "story" of this Jorg Buttgereit film is pretty simple. We get seven different tales all taking place on a different day of the week. All seven stories deal with people who commit suicide. On Sunday, a man, driven to madness by some unspecified mental disturbance, repeatedly slams his head into a wall before collapsing in a pool of his own blood.There was the feel in the NEKRomantik films that Jörg Buttgereit was often patching things together using his old short films and fragments from other films he has shot to pad out the story or running time. This feels even more the case with Der Todesking, which seems to be all made up of shorts and fragments. To what extent they were specifically shot for the film or it is composed from leftovers I have no idea. Der Todesking comes with the overriding theme of death – most of the episodes end with a death of some type, usually by murder or suicide – indeed, you could say that was the early version of The ABCs of Death (2012).