Peter Handke was best known as a novelist,playwright and screenwriter of many of Wenders' early films(he went on to write "Wings of desire" nine years later)when he made this,his debut feature.Few novelists make the transition to director easily but this film is remarkably assured for a first effort.Edith Clever,the German actress who starred very memorably for Eric Rohmer as "The Marquise of O" plays the housewife who one day announces that she wants a divorce from her husband.No reasons or explanations are ever given;the viewer can only speculate about her state of mind as the film proceeds in a series of beautifully shot, reflective scenes photographed by Wenders' usual cameraman Robby Mueller.The static camera-work and long takes are reminiscent of Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu.

I saw "The Left-Handed Woman" on its original release more than twenty years ago, and though I have never seen it since it continues to haunt me. The performance by Edith Clever I think is one of the most moving depictions of the solitary individual that I know. Handke perfectly realizes his own haunting story in cinematic form. I have had no luck finding the movie on video, but someday surely I shall be able to see and admire it again. A terribly neglected masterpiece.

Of the many films by Peter Handke (either alone or with his partner Wim Wenders) this may be the most appealing. It is also not recommended for modern viewers accustomed to Hollywood's rhythm -it is long, slow paced and even difficult to follow sometimes. I strongly recommend viewers to read the book too, although they may not find too many additional clues there, for Handke's style is to reflect the character's actions rather than their thoughts (which, by the way, should be the perfect cinematic approach). Some people have wasted their time especulating about the woman's reasons to divorce her husband: the french essayist Gilles Lipovetsky even said that her "lack of good reasons" is a sign of modern life's emptiness. In fact, we can not say she does not have reasons: only we are not allowed to see them on the screen. One might even think that Handke himself did not care to build the woman's inner thoughts (and if he did, he sure did not share them with us). The movie, and the book, are about communication between us, or at least this is one of its possible readings. Do we really know what is on other people's mind, even people real close to us? The answer is no: we can only talk of what they tell us, or what we might hint, but how many times had we been completely wrong about somebody? The movie defies the usual assumption of an omniscient camera: the woman would not share her thoughts with the viewers, and this leaves us with a sense of discomfort. We feel compelled to find motivations that are just not there. Just the fact that the movie makes us think about it would be enough to qualify it as a masterpiece.