Burning Beds (Brennende Betten), dir. Pia Frankenberg, West Germany, 1988, German with English subtitles, 86 min.

Pia Frankenberg takes the screwball comedy for an explosive spin in her colorful second feature. It is November in Hamburg when Gina, a car mechanic, separates from her partner, shouting from the window, “to hell with security!” Harry, a British drummer with a desire for fire, arrives in the city from London following a breakdown in his marriage. 

Throwing these characters into the housing crisis of the late ’80s, Burning Beds lets sparks fly between the walls of their new flatshare; what begins as a relationship of convenience smoulders into surprising flames. French New Wave cinematographer Raoul Coutard lenses the romantic clashes with dynamism and vivid colour, as Frankenberg and punk musician Ian Dury play the odd couple with percussive force. (Adding another housing crisis to the mix, Dury, allegedly, was so rowdy during filming that no hotel in Hamburg would take him!) Dury recorded the original soundtrack with Frankenberg, whose talents as both comedienne and singer sizzle through this combustible film.