Film Review
Love and life without passion or purpose in a cold urban wilderness -
this is the essence of Rainer Fassbinder's debut feature, an austere
revisionist film noir gangster film that effectively lays the
groundwork for much of the director's subsequent work.
Fassbinder's influences - the American film noir thriller and the films
of the French New Wave directors - are obvious and referenced without
subtlety, and yet this most flamboyant of post-war German filmmakers creates a
work of startling originality and significance. Devotees of
French cinema will immediately detect plot and stylistic similarities
with Jean-Luc Godard's
A bout de souffle and
Bande
à part; Godard and his contemporaries would provide the
inspiration for much of Fassbinder's early work and help him to develop
his distinctive neo-expressionistic style.
The landscape of
Love Is Colder Than
Death is how many artists saw the world in the late 1960s, a
world in which rampant consumerism and declining moral standards had
devalued human relationships and created a burgeoning existentialist
crisis in those who wanted more from life than an expensive car and a
chic fondue set. The main characters in this film appear
incapable of showing outward emotions but instead resemble automata,
clockwork toys that move around, do things, and yet do not seem to be
alive. All three of them are prevented from living, as
free-thinking, freely motivated individuals, because of the external
constraints imposed on them by the flawed society in which they exist.
Franz (played by Fassbinder himself) is a man for whom freedom is
everything. Yet he can never be free because he has chosen a
career in which he is always in the sights of the police and rival
gangsters. Joanna's own fulfilment is inhibited by her
misguided bourgeois prejudice, whilst Bruno's obvious homosexual
leanings are knocked well and truly into the closet by contemporary
attitudes to same sex relationships. The three characters live a
life that is a sham, and they know it. They are little more than
marionettes, half-heartedly acting out the roles in which they have
been cast, simulating love in the same way that they simulate life, a
love that is as cold as death.
The apparent lack of humanity that we see in the three protagonists is
callously amplified by the film's austere presentation. Much of
the drama takes place in Spartan, over-lit sets that lack any
individuality. The camerawork consists mainly of long static
shots, in which there is virtually no movement, or long tracking shots
that take us through a characterless urban desert. Fassbinder
presents us with a vision of our world that is utterly soulless and
barren, an existential void in which humanity has lost its way and
arrived at a grim parody of life that is truly and irredeemably meaningless.
© James Travers 2009
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Next Rainer Werner Fassbinder film:
Der Amerikanische Soldat (1970)
Film Synopsis
Franz, a small time pimp, finds himself in the offices of a powerful
German crime syndicate. The gangsters offer him a regular income
for easy work but he refuses to join them, since he prefers the freedom
he gains by working on his own account. During the
interview Franz meets Bruno, an attractive young man who is strangely
drawn to him. Some time later, after Franz has returned to his
home in Munich, Bruno sets about trying to find him. Several
prostitutes provide Bruno with some valuable leads and it is not long
before the young hoodlum has run the object of his fascination to
ground. Bruno joins Franz and his girlfriend Joanna in their
cramped apartment and the trio make an uncomfortable ménage
à trois. Joanna resents Bruno's presence, whilst Bruno
seems incapable of expressing his true feelings for Franz. To
relieve the tension, the three embark on a small crime spree.
Once Franz has disposed of a hit man, they plan to rob a bank.
Joanna at last sees an opportunity to get rid of Bruno...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.