Rating: 4.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 17/52 | Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
A picture of Hitler painted on a wall explodes — an Allied bombing raid — exposing Maria Berger and Hermann Braun’s wedding at the Civil Registry. They exchange their vows, and windows collapse, and people scramble. While they huddle together, Maria pulls out the forms to sign to make their marriage legally binding.
Hermann returns to the eastern front, and Maria scrambles to make money. She tries to sell her wedding dress, but as her mother says, there are too many women and not enough men right now.
After the war ends and the men return home, Maria searches for Hermann, but he does not return. Still, she holds out hope that he is alive.
In the meantime, Maria must support herself, her mother, and her grandfather. She does her hair and makeup and buys a smuggled dress. Maria goes to her old high school gym, which the Allied troops have converted into an underground bar. There, she applies to do sex work in exchange for cash or goods.
So it will go for Maria — she must seduce and manipulate to find a way forward. The film follows the episodes of her life and the lengths Maria will go to.
Hermann is the ghost on the outskirts of Maria’s life. She claims to do it all for him, but how could she?
If one thing has become clear in Fassbinder’s movies, it’s that he sees himself as an unredeemable piece of shit and likes to focus on similar characters. He was vocal about how much he related to Franz Biberkopf, who was awful to everyone in his life and got what he deserved. But he was also a sympathetic character who the audience cared about.
Here, in a movie made around the same time as Berlin Alexanderplatz, we have Maria Braun. We never see her give an honest go at life, only the time when she lies and fights to live. The value of another life loses its meaning as her ambitions forsake her feelings.
It's not a good time for feelings, but that suits me fine.
The movie has a brisk momentum — everything happens before you can get a hold of it.
Like other Fassbinder movies, melodrama is the lifeblood that keeps the story human — swirling camera and mourning widows, moments of bitter reflection with all-or-nothing conclusions, and sudden musical stings.
It feels a little surreal seeing so many actors from Berlin Alexanderplatz!
Hanna Schygulla exudes something like femme fatale energy, but she never plays the game to full effect. Still, her Maria is unknowable — her secrets live at the edge of the eyes.
For all its eccentricities, the movie isn’t as alienating as some of his other movies. It may not be a romping good time, but its story is human. Still, no one’s ever made a movie like Fassbinder did — it’s magic I hope to understand someday.