Taking its title from a song by Caterina Valente, The Black Angel (Der schwarze Engel) sees two women, an American and a European flee from their lives to Mexico. Starring Magdalena Montezuma, Ellen Umlauf and a cast of non-professional actors, the film is an allegorical descent into the possibilities of transformation that sees the seeds of his fascination with Latin American take root, and further asserts the outcast, the yearner, as his principal subject.