Berlin Alexanderplatz - 15 hours of Fassbender being Fassbender

Berlin Alexanderplatz, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’ epic 15 and a half hour film cut into 13 episodes and an epilogue is perhaps the boldest, most audacious project in his vast filmography. Fassbinder, the bad boy of German New Wave cinema, a movement which also included the likes of Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders among others, was fearless. He was openly gay, took hard drugs, and had an almost inhuman work ethic, having made more than 40 films at the time of his premature death at the age of 40 due to a drug overdose. He lived life fast, tirelessly working on one project after another, and furious, having famous fallouts with his casts and crews, and diving head first into projects with controversial themes that would offend almost everyone including conservatives, feminists, homosexuals, and leftists. While his life sounds like an out of control mess, it is astounding the technical control displayed in his films. It seems incomprehensible that someone who lived such a chaotic life and worked so fast and so much was able to masterfully orchestrate such visually and thematically complicated films.

Berlin Alexanderplatz could be the most ‘Fassbinder’ of all Fassbinder’s films. Watching it, one sees that he was as comfortable and daring behind the camera as ever, undaunted by the immense freedom and budget he was given to make something as exaggeratedly long and depressing as the film is. Released in 1980 and set at the end of the Weimer Republic just before World War II, the films deals with themes including antisemitism, fascism, communism, prostitution, disability, and homosexuality. Fassbinder’s blunt way of taking these issues head on with no reservations offended many viewers upon its release, and will almost certainly offend feminist viewers today who are sure to be at odds with the actions and representations of its female characters.

The film begins when the hero of our story Franz Biberkopf is released from a four year prison sentence for brutally beating his girlfriend Ida to death. As Franz takes his first steps of freedom passing through the prison walls, the first thing that happens to him is he is nearly hit by two cars, one coming from behind him, the other from in front. These first clumsy steps foreshadow what lays ahead for Franz in the episodes to come, a constant barrage of suffering partly self inflicted, partly due to less than desirable conditions in Germany at the time, and partly due to the malice of fellow mankind.

Our hero Franz is normal in every way. He has a big imposing presence, a Tony Soprano-like physique and a common ugliness that is warm and friendly in an everyman kind of way. Günter Lamprecht was born to play the role. It is impossible to imagine anyone else doing it. He is Franz Biberkopf. His round, white, small eyed face suddenly breaks into laughter or rage, or reveals naive innocence with a subtly sweet smile in a way that feels so natural that he cannot be acting. Franz is a murderer, an alcoholic, a criminal, and a bumbling idiot who from time to time also becomes an accidental philosopher. Yet in spite all this, he is somehow also likeable. He may not be anything special, but when he makes a vow to lead an honest life at the beginning of the film, we root for him. However, it soon becomes obvious that, despite his best intentions, our hero will fall. He keeps this promise through pain and misfortune until he abandons it altogether, unable to keep his head up in a world so unforgiving.

Though the reasons for Franz’ downfall are many, the person responsible for his ultimate undoing is the serpent-like Reinhold, a fellow criminal with whom Franz enters into a strange friendship. Soon after meeting they make a pact. Reinhold, an insatiable ladies man who tires of any woman who accepts him, begs Franz to take them off his hands. They agree that once Reinhold has tired of one of his girlfriends, unable to dump her, Franz would take her off his hands and into his own bed. This sharing of lovers creates a strange sexual connection with the two men. But one day when Reinhold is ready to pass Franz his next girl, but Franz refuses, still content with the last one, Reinhold violently breaks down. Is he angry because Franz will not help him? Jealous because he is with one of his ex girlfriends? Or jealous because Franz is capable of staying with her? Whatever the case, Reinhold begins to hate Franz as much as he admires him. He sees his relationship with Franz as a type of competition, of which Franz will become the ignorant victim.

Fassbinder asserts that there is no homosexual desire between the two men, that they are united by a stronger bond of pure, indescribable, non physical love. It is true that no matter what Reinhold does to Franz, Franz comes back to him like a blind lover, returning to the snake's den. Reinhold has a similar obsession with Franz, and when Franz finally seems to have found a girl that really makes him happy and accepts him, Reinhold's uncontrollable desire takes hold of him. He must have her not only because she is beautiful, but because she belongs to Franz.

Gottfried John’s performance as Reinhold is equally strong. His tall skinny body and big long nosed face with dark untrusting eyes and stuttering speech give off a strangely dangerous sexual allure. One can see why Franz becomes infatuated with him, while being repulsed by him at the same time and hoping Franz will run away from him as fast as he can.

While the two principle actors perfectly portray the many dimensions of their characters, they are helped by the expertise of Fassbinder’s complicated camera movements and framing. The film is a technical masterpiece. Fassbinder brilliantly achieves multiple shots in a single take without ever cutting. His camera moves invisibly through space, his most impressive shots dollying from one side of an actor's face to another, from one part of the room to another or from one character to another and back again. He makes every shot look easy because everything fits perfectly into place. The square frame, due to the television aspect ratio, creates a tight space where the drama unfolds. The camera dollies, zooms, cranes, and tracks through these dark unpleasant spaces in long takes that capture the characters actions and reactions. The camera often glides behind a window frame, shows the reflection of a mirror, or ducks behind the prison like bed posts or bars of the highly symbolic bird cage hanging in Franz’ room to further tighten and fill the shot. The film is much darker than other Fassbinder works, the main tones, brown, dark gold, and grey, make the constant blinking pink lights from Franz’ window all the more strange and off putting. The period sets, costumes, props, and designs are also completely believable. All of these techniques are employed to give off Fassbenders’ signature melodramatic effect.

The most impactful part of the film is the epilogue which is almost entirely composed of a nightmare sequence where Franz reencounters all the characters alive and dead from the previous episodes. Death or Satan reappear again and again in the form of Reinhold or other characters who are constantly changing and replacing each other. The sequences are indescribable, and rank among the greatest dream realizations ever filmed by directors like Buñuel, Cocteau, Bergman, and Fellini. Among the hallucinatory episodes is a boxing match against Reinhold, a representation of death as naked humans being brought to the slaughter house, and, finally, as Franz as Christ being crucified while the other characters watch before a nuclear explosion in the background kills them all.

As the allusion to atomic weapons suggests, Berlin Alexanderplatz may be about Weimar Germany, but it was clearly made in and references post WWII Germany. Franz as a common non intellectual is attracted by politics as an answer to his misery. First he sympathizes with the Nazis and later with the communists, letting himself be dragged along by friends and acquaintances without having any real idea as to what he is involved in. He powerfully defends both movements in respective moments when challenged by others. We know he believes what he is saying, but does not understand his own message. At one point Eva, his ex lover and most loyal friend, tells him he is only repeating memorized words that came from someone else’s mouth. We all know people like this, people who defend Trump or some other dubious political figure. They convince themselves that their opinions make sense only because they are unhappy with the current political situation and have found a community in who is as angry as they are. Fassbinder gives us a look into how people like Franz would lead Hitler to power. It is not the committed, dedicated fascists who let the Nazis take control, but the unthinking masses who were swept up in their movement.

The film ends with Franz calmly performing his job as a guard in a garage. A fascist song booms in the background before the credits roll. This is what awaits Franz and the others. They unknowingly continue their difficult lives in depression rid Germany, but things are about to get a whole lot worse.

I cannot finish the article before mentioning the rampant misogyny in the film. Fassbinder would be accused of sexism many times over his career, sometimes deservedly and others not. In Berlin Alexanderplatz, I find these accusations to be true. Yes, in a way the characters like Eva and Mieze are sexually liberated women who make their own money as prostitutes and maintain a real romantic relationship by providing for their pimps/lovers at the same time, but the film has many more problems. The first thing Franz does when he gets out of prison is go rape his murdered ex’s sister. Franz gives her a black eye and forces himself on her. Then when he returns she asks him to leave, but her actions and body language seem to be asking him to rape her again. The same can be said of Mieze’s murder scene at the hands of Reinhold. Mieze does not clearly reject him. She seems to be resisting him beside herself. Again, disturbingly and confusingly, it almost seems as if she is inviting him to rape her.

Women are quick to forgive and forget male violence in general. Frau Bast, the owner of Franz’ building, saw him brutally murder Ida, a scene that is repeated continually through the show, yet she continues to dote upon him as if he were a prince. And when Franz’ almost beats Mieze to death when she tells him she is in love with someone else, her face horribly bruised and bloodied, she forgives him in the blink of a terribly swollen eye and happily lets him take her out to the countryside, her face still scarred. This is not to mention the idea that women as gorgeous as Eva or Mieze would even somehow be interested in Franz. In the world of Berlin Alexanderplatz, women are willing to jump on any man who shows them attention. Franz and Reinhold, despite looking more like an ogre and a goblin are never rejected by a woman in the film, and every time they tire of a woman she is desperate, hysterical, unable to imagine life without them. Despite the film’s many strong points, it is not possible to overlook its ugly misogyny which cannot be excused by the time it represents or the time when it was made.

In short, Berlin Alexanderplatz, astounds with technical artistry and brilliant performances, foments reflection in its depiction of history, and, unfortunately, really does offend. The bad boy of German cinema never fails to provoke discussion and argument.