Washington Post by Gary Arnold
Although Rohmer's adaptation, shot in German with a cast of actors drawn from the German stage, is pedantically faithful to the letter of the original - almost word-for-word as well as scene-for-scene - it substitutes a style that seems woefully wrong. Rohmer's approach is too static and repressed to release the comic ironies Kleist perceived in the very premise of an honorable man's lapse leading to an honorable woman's distress and built into his brilliantly objective story-telling style. [21 Jan 1977, p.B15]
I'm not sure who came up with the idea that this would be a good story to adapt, but oh boy. This movie has some beautiful costume pieces and great cinematography but in the end its still a story about a woman who is forced to marry her rapist.