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Rainer Werner Fassbinder died from a drugs overdose at the
age of thirty-six, leaving behind him a prodigious body of
work, which encompassed not only his work for television and
the stage but also forty-one films.
The
second Fassbinder commemorative collection box set carries
on chronologically from Volume
One, and showcases a more mature film maker,
yet is still the product of a driven mind. All the films are
in German with optional English subtitles. In general the
prints are very good with a dual channel audio soundtrack.
The eight films cover the period of 1973 to 1982.
Fear
Eats the Soul (Colour, 4:3, 1974) depicts a love affair
that transcends the barriers of race and age and in many ways
was a re-imagining of All that Heaven Allows (1956),
rather than a remake; the theme had also surfaced, in a more
chaste way in Harold and Maude (1971).
Following
a chance meeting, in a bar Ali, a thirty- something Moroccan
worker, meets sixty year old widow Emmi. The meeting leads
to a relationship which scandalises everyone around them.
At first this rejection draws the two unlikely lovers together,
but following a holiday the discrimination appears to evaporate.
Without their imposed isolation to keep them together Ali
soon wanders and starts an affair with the local bar owner
Barbara, played by Barbara Valentin, even to the point of
being cruel about Emmi's age.
The
story comes full circle, when the two unlikely lovers meet
in the bar again and decide that all that matters is how they
feel about each other. Any other director might have been
tempted to leave the story at this high note, but this is
a Fassbinder film where nihilism and despair reign, so following
their reconciliation Ali collapses with a perforated ulcer.
In the hospital Emmi is informed that he'll likely keep getting
them every six months until they kill him.
The
film is an oddly moving piece, especially due to Brigitte
Mira's portrayal of Emmi, who regardless of her age or looks
still believes in the possibility of love, even in the face
if Ali's infidelity. El Hedi Ben Salem, who plays Ali and
was Fassbinder's lover at the time, is less effective in his
role. Although the plot of the film is fairly simple, Fassbinder
resists making the story either simplistic or over melodramatic.
Extras:
Fassbinder in Hollywood (57 min 5 sec) is a little
misleading as it has Hanna Schygulla and Ulli Lommel looking
back at their time with Fassbinder. Partly in English and
partly in German with subtitles, it is another fascinating
look at Fassbinder's legacy; Life Stories: A Conversation
with Rainer Werner Fassbinder (48 min 29 sec) does what
it says on the box, with Fassbinder discussing himself and
how his life informed his art; The City Tramp (11 min
27 sec) is one of his short films from 1966, fascinating pondering
on the theme of suicide; Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven,
2002) Interview (15 min 12 sec) who looks at the fascination
that he, Fassbinder and Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows,
1955) have for the themes that where central to all three
of their films; and last, but not least, is the original theatrical
trailer.
Fontane Effi Briest (B&W, 4:3, 1974), whose full
title must rate as the longest in movie history (Fontane
Effi Briest oder viele, die eine Ahnung haben von ihren Möglichkeiten
und ihren Bedürfnissen und trotzdem das herrschende System
in ihrem Kopf akzeptieren durch ihre Taten und es somit festigen
und durchaus bestätigen).
The
film was a departure for Fassbinder as it is a period costume
drama and as such represents some of his most accessible work
and as a study of provincial boredom and adultery has much
in common with Flaubert's Madam Bovary. The film stared
the ever beautiful Hanna Schygulla as Effi, Wolfgang Schenck
as the Baron von Instetten and another Fassbinder regular
Ulli Lommel as Major Crampas.
The
story tells of Effi, a young woman living in Imperial Prussia,
who, although a free spirit, agrees to a marriage to the much
older Baron. Shunned by her new society, Effi finds the life
of a Baron's wife stifling, so much so, that she spends her
time with the rakish Major Crampas.
Effi
can be a difficult film to watch as Fassbinder allows his
actors to inject little in the way of drama or inflection
in their delivery, reflecting the emotional flatness of the
characters lives. In this, it was a brave decision as the
film could be mistaken for another monologue driven piece,
but taken on its merits it's a tour de force of boredom and
alienation. In the end it remains a compelling piece of work.
Extras:
None.
Fox and his Friends (Colour, 4:3, 1975), Fassbinder
plays Fox whose carnival show is in danger of collapse when
his girlfriend is arrested. His homosexuality leads him to
be picked up by society types who are most interested in him
when he wins the lottery. But when his money runs out so does
their interest.
Although
it has a fairly straight forward narrative, the film is really
a study in betrayal and the way in which people use each other,
as Fox is taken on a whirlwind tour of the middle-class homosexual
community. Fox's win makes him friends, or so he thinks, the
central irony of the title is that without money Fox has no
friends. In fact, the middle class gays universally despise
his lower class origins and the only thing which they are
interested in is either his body or, in the case of Eugen,
his money. Even Eugen's parents are depicted as willing to
entertain Fox, as they require his money to save them from
bankruptcy.
In
the end Fox does what other Fassbinder creation have done
and kills himself only to have the final indignity of having
the last of his money and even his identity, in the form of
his jacket with his name on the back, by two middle-class
school boys, while his former friends leave him in the gutter
not wanting to get involved. It is a final image that sums
up his experience throughout the film.
Extras:
Original theatrical trailer
Mother Kusters goes to Heaven (Colour, 4:3 1975), Brigitte
Mira plays the title role of a working class woman whose world
is turned upside down when her husband goes insane at work
and kills himself after he beats to death the bosses son.
Her personal tragedy is hijacked, not only by members of her
own family for their own personal gain, but by political factions
wanting to make gains of their own.
The
film works on many levels as Mira's character strives through
the film to clear her husbands name. One of the best sections
is her eulogy for her husband at a communist rally. In the
end it is another film about exploitation as various factions,
including the press, take what they need from the innocent
Kusters. The central message of the film remains as potent
today - after all it wasn't that long ago that a certain British
politician made his own child eat a burger at the height of
the CJD epidemic. It would seem that people will exploit almost
anything for personal gain.
Extras:
None
Fear of Fear (Colour, 4:3, 1975) is another of his
made for television films. Margot (Margit Carstensen) should
have everything a middle-class woman could want. Her husband
Kurt (Ulrich Faulhaber) is successful; she has an adorable
young daughter, Bibi, and another child on the way. So why
does she feel that she is slowly loosing her mind. The birth
of her child does little to help as she spirals out of control
into drink drugs and infidelity. Kurt is depicted as too self
preoccupied and emotionally distant to be of any help with
his wife as she fears that something about the impending birth
is robbing her of her sanity...
Because
of her central importance the movie lives or dies with Carstensen's
performance and thankfully she is up to the task of portraying
a woman at war with herself who is too alienated from the
world which surrounds her to communicate her pain. The world
is, therefore, unable to help her and her search for communion
with the world through sex and suicide. Eventually she wins
through, in a way, by transforming into a emotionless Stepford
wife.
Although
the film is far more traditional than a lot of Fassbinders
work, it remains powerful for a television film
Extras:
None.
Satan's Brew (Colour, 4:3, 1976) and let's admit it straight
off that some comedies just don't travel that well, but luckily
this one just might. Walter (Kurt Raab) is a broke poet, his
publisher having refused to give him any more money. However
that is only the tip of his problems. His wife, Luise (Helen
Vita), complains that they haven't had sex for seventeen days,
which is not such a problem for Walter as he is engaging in
very kinky sex with one of his mistresses Irngart (Katherina
Buchhammer)... Well he would be if he hadn't shot her by accident
whilst she was writing a cheque for his services. Added to
this he lives with his very strange brother, Ernst (Volker
Spengler), who keeps trying to make love to flies, and I do
mean house flies. In a fit of writer's block Walter thinks
that he is Stefan George, a nineteenth Century gay poet, and
in his desire to emulate him decides that he should be gay.
The
film is both absurd and absurdly funny in a very slapstick
sort of way. Of course, this being Fassbinder, there is a
deeper meaning going on here, but in truth the lurch, from
one bizarre set of circumstance to another, leaves you watching
in fascination as Walter's world get weirder and weirder.
That said this will not be a comedy for everyone's taste.
Extras:
Original theatrical trailer.
Chinese
Roulette (Colour, 16:9, 1976) and another film revolving
around the very European theme of infidelity and the dysfunctional
bourgeoisie - a theme most beloved of Fassbinder and Godard.
The twist here is that both a husband and wife both go off
separately for the weekend only to discover that they have
both ended up in the same place with their respective lovers.
Soon their crippled daughter turns up and instigates a game
of Chinese roulette with tragic consequences.
Here
we have a film which, because of its obsessions, may not appeal
to a non European audience. Although the film is a well made
psychological thriller, it is not the best film of its type.
This is Fassbinder at his height as a technical film maker
and there is little to fault the composition or construction
of the film, though the themes may be lost on some.
Extras:
Original theatrical trailer
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Colour, 16:9, 1979), is
a somewhat touching story of a woman, played by Hanna Schygulla,
who in the last days of the war, looses her husband. She takes
up with another soldier, but following his death her husband
returns.
On
this slim outline Fassbinder has hung his most complete condemnation
of what he sees as the emotional cost of the war and his distate
over the direction of Germany following the war. In every
respect this was the film that Fassbinder was building towards
throughout his previous films, we can only guess what masterpieces
died with him.
Extras:
Fassbinder Familia, which gives the background of fifteen
of the actors that appeared in Fassbinder's films, including
Fassbinder, himself; The Women of Rainer Werner Fassbinder
(25 min 21 sec), which is a montage of the women which have
appeared in many of his films; Documentary (1977) by Florian
Hopf (29 min 9 sec) which is another film about Fassbinder;
there is the original trail and lastly another of his short
films The Big Chaos.
 
Charles
Packer
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