Table for Love (1967) Mahlzeiten

Director: Edgar Reitz
Writer: Edgar Reitz
Stars: Heidi Stroh, Georg Hauke, Nina Frank

The story of Elisabeth and Paul who get married and drift apart. They have a very different take on life, hers rather bohemian and his disillusioned. Repeatedly the film moves away from the pure narrative toward a discursive and parable style of storytelling.

This film, Reitz's first feature, was essentially the second film now considered part of the German New Cinema movement (after Alexander Kluge's "Yesterday Girl"); it was financed through the new Kuratorium junger deutscher film. The prominence of the Oberhausen group, of which Reitz was a leader, and its success at festivals prompted a great deal of global attention. Millions saw it in West Germany, for instance.

Local Church leaders cooperated in its production in hopes of improving public relations in Europe, and actual full-time missionaries from America played the film's roles. The Church withdrew its support–both officially and in terms of individual German members–when the finished film proved to be less than propagandistic. No official actions were taken to block or discredit it, however. It is one of the most important film depictions of Mormonism to ever come out of Europe.

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