Peer Raben Movies
- 1972
Based on Franz Xaver Kroetz's play, which is in turn based on a true story, this film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder tells the story of a very young girl who, after persuading a local boy to become her lover, induces the lad to kill her father, whose incestuous sexual attentions to her have grown unbearable. The site they choose for this deed, which gives its name to the film, is a wild-game crossing. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder directs the made-for-TV melodrama Pioneers in Ingolstadt, based on the play by Marieluise Fleisser. The film opens as a parade of soldiers are marching through a town square singing patriotic songs. Alma (Irm Hermann) and Berta (Hanna Schygulla) are watching them and musing about their ideas on men and relationships. The soldiers (often referred to as pioneers) have been given the task of building a bridge in the town. Alma seems to understand that the soldiers only want her for short sexual encounters, so she's prepared to live her life accordingly. Meanwhile, romantic Berta falls in love with self-centered soldier Karl (Harry Baer), who all but tells her to get lost. The soldiers get drunk and beat up a random passerby. The women grow to hate Alma for her acceptance of life as a sex object. Naïve Berta is ultimately humiliated. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
In his 36-year life, director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made some 40 films. He is perhaps best known to American audiences for his 1978 period drama, The Marriage of Maria Braun. A theme he examined repeatedly in his films was the unreasonable meanness of people, which he shows in a stark, relentless fashion. This early film, Whity, is set in the American Old West, with overtones of the antebellum South. The main character, Whity (Günther Kaufmann), is a black servant who is sorely abused at every turn. Eventually, he has had all he can take; his manner of taking vengeance is what this film is about. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Günther Kaufmann, Ron Randell, (more)
American Soldier (originally Der Amerikanische Soldat) was the third of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "gangster trilogy." The film stars Karl Scheid as a German/American Vietnam veteran who takes a job as a hired assassin on behalf of the Munich crime lords. Scheid works both sides of the fence when three policemen engage him to knock off some awkward malcontents. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Karl Scheydt, Elga Sorbas, (more)
A technical designer enjoys a comfortable life with his wife and child. He has the approval of his boss and is in good health except for smoking too much according to his doctor. His wife is visited by a girlfriend one Sunday afternoon. The man is bored watching television and grabs a chandelier and kills the conversing women and his child. In a chilling display of nonchalance, he contemplates his own death by hanging in this disturbing feature. This film was the fourth for director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, (more)
Gods of the Plague (Gotter der Pest) is one of several German films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder under his pseudonym of Franz Walsch. That's Fassbinder, however, playing the small role of a buyer of pornography. The main story involves a pair of two-bit hoods who spend most of the film one-upping each other with a brace of scheming females. Their dreary life of crime comes to a spectacular head in a shoot-out at a supermarket. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Margarethe von Trotta, (more)
An independent criminal's work is admired by organized crime. He is tortured after he refuses the invitation to join the gang but later relents and becomes a member. He continues to be a pimp and a murderer in this disturbing film that appeared at the Berlin Film Festival in 1969. This feature garnered international recognition for writer/director Rainer Werner Fassbinder who would go on to become one of Germany's most prolific directors of the post-World War II era. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ulli Lommel, Hanna Schygulla, (more)
Jorgos (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is a Greek immigrant in Germany who encounters the intolerance of the locals against foreign workers. Open hostility turns to violence when he is beaten up by the authoritarian thugs after dating a German woman. Male and female nudity along with hetero and homosexual sex scenes are shown in this searing indictment against prejudice and fascism. This feature took the Prize of International Film Critics at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1969. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Rudolf Waldemar Brem, (more)
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