Irmin Schmidt composed the entirety of the film's soundtrack, aided by Alex Wiska [de] who played bağlama.

[1] Knife in the Head begins with a police raid on a left-wing social centre in which Berthold Hoffmann is seriously injured.

His wife Ann Hoffmann and her friend Volker visit him in hospital and discover that he is brain damaged.

Roger Ebert gave it three stars, saying it "isn't a straightforward leftist political tract; it's much more subtle than that".

[2] A neurologist opined that "Bruno Ganz’s extraordinary portrayal of Berthold Hoffman’s neurological condition is arguably the most realistic enactment of a brain injury ever depicted in the cinema".