Fleisch

German newlyweds Mike and Monica check into a seedy motel in New Mexico. Their honeymoon is rudely interrupted when two paramedics abduct Mike in their ambulance, while Monica manages to escape to the desert highway. A truck driver named Bill agrees to help her find Mike. The journey takes the two to New York – and on the trail of an international gang trafficking in illegal organs that is holding Mike captive in a clinic. Monica and Bill bravely make their way inside …
“How much is anyone worth? What would you pay for a man?” Like a leitmotif, the title song and various iterations of “flesh” – whether during lovemaking, or as frozen “parts” or dog food – permeate this film by Rainer Erler, which launched the concept of a “science thriller” in Germany. Woven with threads of a western or a road movie, in 1979 Spare Parts created a buzz and, due to an acute shortage of donor organs in Germany, a fierce public debate. That threatened to drown out something Erler deemed important, the “spark of humanity in an apparently inhumane world” and his romantic tale of love and willingness to make sacrifices.