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The manic vision of genius
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films continue to haunt viewers decades after they were made. It's not just the storyline but also their narrative that makes them compelling.
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RAINER WERNER Fassbinder belongs to the rare group of directors whose films are either unabashedly admired or fiercely discredited. A prolific filmmaker, Fassbinder in a relatively short life span, created works that — even decades later — continue to haunt and intrigue the viewers across the world.
Max Mueller Bhavan is playing host to a retrospective of the famed — if controversial — German director by screening his films. The five-film retrospective was given a flying start with two of his early films, Love Is Colder Than Death and Gods of Plague, screened last weekend.
Love is Colder Than Death (black-and-white / 88 min. / 1969) is not just intriguingly titled but filmed so as well. Dedicated to Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Marie Straub, Linio and Cuncho, Love is Colder Than Death is Fassbinder's first feature film. Thanks to the unconventional narration and depiction of characters complimented by an unusual "storyline", Fassbinder was reportedly booed after its screening but true to his style and character, he, in return, is said to have waved his arms in victory. The film grips and bores the viewers alternately while narrating a tale of Franz, a pimp (played by Fassbinder himself), Joanna, a prostitute who is Franz's girlfriend (Hanna Schygulla), and Bruno (Ulli Lommel) who befriends Franz.
The very first shot is unusual with half the frame left virtually blank. In the other half sits Franz, smoking a cigarette, reading a newspaper, and waiting for his call to meet the "syndicate". Franz does not want to work for the syndicate, which naturally roughs him up.
Violence is a recurring theme as the following episodes denote fierce sequences of gunfire, fisticuffs, and death. Lengthy uninterrupted and seemingly meaningless shots are many. Some of them, however, have been picturised with rare insight and sensitivity. One particular shot, showing Joanna and Bruno in a supermarket where she shoplifts a number of odd items, is smooth and interesting. The scene in which Bruno (picks Franz after interrogation) drives through the streets is worth particular mention for the camera placement. The camera does not leave the front of the car all through and the effect is simply amazing. The film ends after a fascinating drama of betrayal and connivance. Bruno, who has schemed for the murder of Joanna, is himself betrayed to the police by Joanna. Caught in crossfire, he is fatally wounded. Joanna dumps his limp body off the speeding car on Franz's order. More than the storyline, it is Fassbinder's narrative power that intrigues and irritates the viewer. The superbly composed camera shots are complemented by slick editing even as the dialogues are kept to the barest minimum.
Gods of the Plague (b/w, 91 min., 1969), Fassbinder's third film, seems to be a sequel to Love is Colder Than Death. Its movement is slick, style refined, and maze of relationship even more intricate. The guns in this "smoke" unlike the previous film. But the saga of love, passion, sex, betrayal, violence, and death continues as ever but here its rendering is polished and lyrical.
Franz, released from prison, is slowly but surely sucked by events that bear painful and catastrophic consequences to himself and others. Joanna, who seems to have graduated from a roadside prostitute to a nightclub singer, is dumped by Franz, but he has to pay a price. Joanna betrays Franz who is on a trip to rob a supermarket with his pal.
Continuing in the same vein, the third film of the retrospective, The American Soldier (b/w, 1970), is another hit-and-miss-not effort. In an immaculately packaged work, Fassbinder crams all the ingredients of the previous films — sex, violence, betrayal, and towards the end, features an action-packed, high-voltage drama as in the best of gangster films. The protagonist and anti-hero, the American soldier, is actually a Vietnam war veteran who has now turned a ruthless killer. He kills at will for money. There are no less than half a dozen deaths (including a messy suicide) that occur in a short span of less than 80 minutes. Eventually and ironically, the killer himself becomes the target of a brutal gunfire battle in a fascinatingly shot climax. From the very first shot when a group of three Munich policemen wait for the "killer" to arrive, till the bloody climax where the killer is riddled by bullets, Fassbinder keeps his viewers on the edge.
While all the films show excellent production values, a special mention has to be made about the remarkable photographic achievement. One can only marvel at the ability of the cameraman (Dietrich Lohmann) to visually translate the dream of the director with the same passion and precision.
Fassbinder's films rejoice moments of intrigue and intimacy, irritation and immediacy, even as they vibrate with an irreverent intensity and reckless inspiration. Bangaloreans will get to see two more of his films at MMB as part of the retrospective — The Merchant of Four Seasons (Saturday, August 2) and Satan's Brew (Monday, August 4); both screenings are at 6.30 p.m..
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Life and works...
A PROLIFIC film maker and theatre personality, Fassbinder directed over 40 productions, most of them feature films, a few TV specials, and an epic 931-minute TV mini-series, Berlin Alexanderplatz, in a career that spanned from 1969 till his death caused by a diet of alcohol, cocaine, and pills. In 1970 alone, he directed seven feature films.
Besides direction, he was a skilful screenplay writer, art director, editor, and actor. His films dealt with a wide variety of themes and rejoiced in vicarious humour and irony, while painting incisive, if devastating, images of post-war Germany. Powerful sequences of violence, brutality, torture, and betrayal meant to provoke the viewers are common in his films, as is the depiction of sex and death.
The New York Times called him the most dazzling, talented, provocative, original, puzzling, prolific, and exhilarating filmmaker of his generation. Fassbinder, who flaunted his homosexuality, was also a difficult person to befriend and work with — thanks to a carefully and deliberately cultivated notoriety.
His films include: Rios Das Mortes (1970), The Coffee House (1970), Beware of a Holy Whore (1970), Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1970), The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Wild Game (1972), Nora Helmer (1973), Martha (1973), Fear Eats the Soul (1973), Fox and his Friends (1974), Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (1975), Fear of Fear (1975), I Only Want You to Love Me (1976), Chinese Roulette (1976), Women in New York (1977), The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), In a Year with 13 Moons (1978), The Third Generation (1979), Lola (1981), and Veronika Voss (1982).
ATHREYA
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