Baal (2009) is a German drama directed by Volker Schlöndorff, based on the play Baal by Bertolt Brecht. Primarily set in the late nineteenth century, Brecht’s expressionist Baal, a desacralized antihero and self-destructive artist, is the center of focus in this film as per his modern adaptation’s perspective. Baal can be characterized as someone who ‘does not care’ about social conventions, and lives a life of excess, debauchery, and moral relativism.
The plot is focused on the personality of a talented poet and a musician Baal, who leads a stormy and uncontrollable existence. He shuttles between women and is a seeker of new pleasures which include intoxication, drugs, and sexual promiscuity. But sadly, when Baal is not physically fighting, he is haunting people with his freedom including artistic freedom, which also gets him in trouble due to his ways leading to his self-destruction.
Baal successfully illustrates how deep Baal is into Brecht’s resentments against his former society and how even distinctive fusion of human growth and self-sabotage can grapple personal liberty and consequences. In this way, produced goes to the extreme extent of alienating viewers from emotions of the story and focusing on the evolvement of the character from the decisions that were made.
In the film, August Diehl performs Baal, and while it is a contemporary and more stylized version of the original play, it still bears Brecht’s subject of overthrowing popular motifs and is intellectually stimulating to the audience who is accustomed to these themes or to avant-garde film in general.