Enfant Terrible is a perfect name for this unsettling biopic about the queer German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Filmmaker Oskar Roehler spares no punches in telling the tale of this outrageous egomaniac who treated everybody in his life so vilely and in a manner that could not be justified by the fact that his films were accepted as the work of a genius. Roehler focuses on the 1970’s and the early 1980s when Fassbunder (Oliver Masucci) was probably at his most prolific churning out films and theater plays at an unimaginable pace. By the time he died in 1982, at age 37, from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates, in his short career he had completed over 40 feature films, two television series, three short films, four video productions, and 24 plays. We see some of the earlier films being booed but he would later produce ones such as The Marriage of Maria Braun The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975),), and Querelle (1982) which would become hailed as near masterpieces. Whilst Roehler shows us the sheer mayhem of these being made with Fassbinder lurching from film to film never easing up on his manic behavior or excessive drug use, we never get to get inside the man’s mind to get a better understanding of his creative process. Instead, we are treated to the spectacle of a rather despicable character, that despite our love for his work, we really come to hate the man. |
We see Fassbinder as a self-absorbed man of excess who was obsessed sexually with both women and men. Although in this film we see mainly the latter. Falling in love with uncontrollable passion and violence usually with married men who he insisted leave their wives. Like Gunther ( Michael Klammer) a black Bavarian who only wanted a starring role in a Fassbinder film so he put up with the excessive fawning and sexual badgering. For example, the film fails to mention that in one year Fassbinder showered him with four Lamborghinis.
All of the lovers were cast in his films regardless of whether they could act or not, and if they even wanted the opportunity. Sadly one takes his own life, what is surprising is that others didn’t just escape Fassbinder
Kudos to Roehler for using shabby theatrical sets to shoot the whole film on, which was particularly successful for the scenes in the seedy gay bars where Fassbinder stalked for his next lover aka victim. And also for showing how Fassbinders troubled views of society and politics in particular shaped his attitudes to life so vehemently. Credit to Masucci for his extremely convincing performance of a man who we may have been desperate to admire, but we just simply couldn’t stop despising. You realize that genius or not, its impossible to respect a person who had absolutely no respect for anybody or anything It is however a film so intriguing and ultimately fascinating, you’ll probably find it nigh on impossible to stop thinking about it for some time after. However, you really need to know about Fassbinder’s work and his important place in New German Cinema before you start to view this biopic, otherwise, you will struggle to stay for the whole 2 hours until the final credits roll. |
