''No Mercy, No Future'' (, ''"The Touched"'') is a 1981

West German West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republic after its capital c ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Helma Sanders-Brahms Helma Sanders-Brahms (20 November 1940 – 27 May 2014) was a German film director, screenwriter and producer. Biography Helma Sanders was born on 20 November 1940 in Emden, Germany. She attended a school for acting in Hannover from 1960 to 1 ...

Plot

Veronika Christoph, the troubled daughter of uncaring bourgeois parents, has been institutionalized due to her

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

. Without proper psychiatric treatment for her unearthly visions, she prowls the streets along the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

at night in search of

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

, yet settles for the company of strange, exiled men.

Cast

* Elisabeth Stepanek as Veronika Christoph *Jorge Reis as Demba *Curt Curtini as Magician *Hasan Hasan as Monsef *Carola Regnier as Physician *Hubertus von Weyrauch as Veronika's Father *Irmgard Mellinger as Veronika's Mother *Nguyen Chi Danh as Patient *Erich Koltschack as Old Man *George Stamkoski as Greek Man *Karl Heinz Reimann as

's Son *Abdel Wahed Askar as Ibrahim *Nabil Reiroumi as Salem *Harald Hoedt as Patient * Erika Dannhoff as Countess *Günther Ehlert as Death

Release

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Facets Multi-Media in 2008.

Reception

Thomas Elsaesser, author of ''European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood'', wrote that ''No Mercy, No Future'' was a "relative" failure in the commercial and critical aspects compared to '' Germany, Pale Mother'' and that the situation "may have led Sanders-Brahms in the direction of the European art cinema." London's '' Time Out'' has referred to the film's performances as faultless and it was screened at the 1982

Berlin International Film Festival The Berlin International Film Festival (), usually called the Berlinale (), is an annual film festival held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festival has been held every February since 1978 and is one of Europ ...

and won the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

Sutherland Trophy The Sutherland Trophy was created in 1958 by the British Film Institute (BFI) as an annual award for "the maker of the most original and imaginative irst or secondfeature film introduced at the National Film Theatre during the year".''1963 Londo ...

Award for 1981. Critic Michael Atkinson praised the film as a "classic, show-it-all acting coup that doesn’t wriggle free of your memory very easily."

References

External links

* *
''No Mercy, No Future''
at the

TCM Movie Database Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

''Die Berührte''
at Film Portal {{Sutherland Trophy 1980s avant-garde and experimental films 1981 drama films 1981 films Fiction about schizophrenia Films about religion Films directed by Helma Sanders-Brahms Films set in Berlin Films set in psychiatric hospitals German avant-garde and experimental films German drama films German independent films 1980s German-language films West German films 1980s German films