Armin Meier Movies
This provocative film anthology contains nine short fiction and documentary films believed to have had great influence on the development of New German Cinema. Each of the five was directed by a different German filmmaker and are set during the politically tempestuous summer of 1977 in West Germany when terrorism ran rampant. Filmmakers include Fassbinder, Boll, Schlondorff, Sinkel, Kluge (who narrates) and more. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Caroline Chaniolleau
Having made as many films as he had years, at 31, Rainer Werner Fassbinder essayed a slightly different approach for his 32nd film, Despair. Here, he uses a witty screenplay written by the well-known playwright Tom Stoppard, based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Furthermore, the entire film, set in 1930s Germany, is in English. It received mixed reviews, if only because it is so unlike the director's other works. In the story, a Russian owner of a German chocolate-factory, whose business and marriage are both on the rocks, fantasizes about leaving his current life, and living another one. Indeed, he has delusions that he is somehow outside himself, watching himself live his life. So strong is his desire to alter his life that when he encounters a tramp while on a brief business trip, he imagines that the man looks exactly like him, decides to exchange identities with the tramp, and murders him. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Dirk Bogarde, Andréa Ferréol, (more)
Angela is the crippled daughter of two separated but still-feuding parents. In this Rainer Werner Fassbinder film, the wealthy parents are both induced to come to their country vacation house with their lovers in tow. For years, they have tried to make Angela feel guilty for having driven them to seek comfort outside their marriage, though ironically there is some indication that their dalliances may have had a hand in the accident that caused her condition. In this unpleasant milieu, they begin playing a truth-telling game called "Chinese Roulette," which leads to even more distasteful revelations and recriminations.. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margit Carstensen, Ulli Lommel, (more)
A housewife's slow descent into suicidal depression is chronicled in great detail in this movie by experimental film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Margit Carstensen, Ulrich Faulhaber, (more)
This fast-paced black comedy by wunderkind director Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows the frantic efforts of a starving and confused writer, Walter Kranz (Kurt Raab) to beg, borrow or steal enough money to survive on, and at the same time make some sense of his confusing life. Unable to write enough to keep his publisher's royalty advances coming, he seeks out a woman he imagines is a prostitute and interviews her for material. He is also inspired to utter some poetry, which his brassy, outspoken wife identifies as coming from the famous homosexuality-advocating mystical German poet, Stefan George. This inspires Walter to take a closer look at the "gay scene," and he quickly becomes a sort of celebrity there. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kurt Raab, Helen Vita, (more)
Mother Kusters (Brigette Kira) is the wife of a factory worker who goes beserk one day, killing himself and the boss' son. Mother finds herself a media celebrity, which only serves to make herself and her late husband look like idiots. Later, Mother is "adopted" by a Communist couple who wish to exploit her husband's "act of defiance" for their own purposes. Finally left alone, Mother Kusters decides to stop living off her husband's notoriety and turn into a human being again. Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder used the 1929 film Mother Krausen's Journey to Happiness as a springboard for his own mysoginistic slant on opportunism. The film hit a bit too close to home in his own country, where it was banned from entering the Berlin Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
