El soldado americano

Incredibly incredible. Static (except for the long scenes shot in the convertible car, when we see the shadow of the camera). Unconvincing. Amateurish. Fake actors. Uninteresting story. Unprofessional image. As directed by a debutant (although it is Fassbinder's 6th feature) who is experimenting and does not really know what he wants.

This is a very funny attempt by the director to deal with the "klischee"( german spelling) of the american man, or at least how the proletarian german man is looking across the atlantic. All americans are good in bed? goodlooking? violent and yet cool? Why is there a need to put ketchup on a shot person's shirt? Would you really believe then that somebody was actually killed? I agree with other viewers that this not a movie that could be considered enjoyable at all times, but it beats movies like "the patriot" or "frida" any time, because it doesn't take itself serious. And that in itself is exactly the director's criticism of american culture ( what an abuse of the word culture!) and their consistant effort to tell you everything is allright and we are the good guys. Here, have another Diet coke, or would you like a Big Mac with your Whitney Houston?

The European pseudo-noirs of the 60s and 70s reaped the benefits of being able to skip a number of steps in the writing process simply by adopting styles and themes from previous films. What was left was to add one's own spin to an existing story. Fassbinder was a genius at taking a style and making it his own, not in a superficially Tarantino-ish way, but in a way that was at once equally unique and dependent, retaining the benefits of a style and pushing it even further into his own territory.

In this sense, this film is an early experiment: a war veteran turned contract killer stoically carrying out his duties, but in a post-war German environment and with homoerotic undertones galore. But it's remarkably coherent and compelling considering how little the plot gives away explicitly. Indeed, this would become one of his trademarks.

4 out of 5 - An excellent film

The American Soldier has a story, maybe even a plot, but that's not why Rainer Werner Fassbinder made this movie, I believe. It's more about an attack or subversion on the style of a movie, in this case the film-noir. The black and white makes the comparison a little obvious, but it's also in the attitudes of the characters, the costumes and clothing that distinguishes a character like Ricky. But it also owes as much to New-Wave tactics like Godard and Melville (Le Samourai and Alphaville come immediately to mind), and to Fassbinder's own sense of alienation with the world as well as in his own films. It's sometimes hard to watch, since his character carry the same weight of angst and dread that they barely really show to one another, but it's still an intriguing trip.

The story that is there actually reveals more about a German viewpoint than that of it being American, though I'm sure its protagonist and its background is significant just for this reason. It's about a soldier back from Vietnam who is recruited by the government, who act much in the way of a discreet crime organization, to carry out killings of people who may (or may not?) be nefarious characters, or just people whom Ricky doesn't know why he's killing. The implication is somewhat more satirical than action-movie based (though I'm reminded, sadly, of Wolverine earlier this year and movies like it that don't get the message), that a killer keeps on killing if without the right sense of moral well-being or even self-worth.

Fassbinder amps up some clichés for the film-noir aesthetic by making it a pulpy-crime story, where a prostitute falls in love with Ricky even as she shouldn't or might just get in the way. He also casts his parts very well, especially with Karl Scheydt as Ricky (makes Glenn Ford look like a wimp) and Elga Sorbas as Rosa, the attractive but uncertain prostitute who falls for Ricky (there's an engrossing scene where he calls up to ask for a girl to his apartment room, she comes and undresses, and then the two just lay in bed while a maid is in the room telling a somber story about a romance gone bad). All of the cinematography is at least interesting, and at best represents a maturity in film-making for Fassbinder after his first couple of films (Love is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher) that were just a series of static shots.

Some have brought up criticisms of its tedious nature, or that it's just boring. It's hard to argue it since it's based on taste; the same scene that could make on bored (and, frankly, it's not a good movie to watch when tired at two in the morning) could also make a Jim Jarmusch fan gripped to the chair one's sitting at. Characters in The American Soldier don't move too realistically - it's more like in Fassbinder's own The Merchant of Four Seasons; people move and talk and look like they've come out of a shell-shock, or may still be in one. Even the cop characters, or Ricky's mom and brother, are in a slight daze as they speak, and this is deliberate. It ends up making for a more intellectually satisfying experience than an emotional one; I wasn't so much moved by the ending, where we see a character's death (one usually typical in a film-noir of the 1940s in America, as in bad-guy-gets-his by the end) in the context of a poetic mourning, but it did fascinate me.

It's sometimes tough going, and its rewards are for a real geek for black and white New-Wave inspired crime films that have such gimmicks as a rock song that repeats in lieu of a usual orchestral sound, and its not for someone looking for fast action and conventional thrills. It is, in its dimensions, arty, and fine with it.

I am not really too sure what the love affection people have for Fassbinder is. He made some wildly uneven movies, Mind you, I've been wrong before on directors (especially on Bergman) so I'll keep this opinion til proved otherwise. 'The American Soldier" is Fassbiner's attempt at a Film Noir. He doesn't succeed. OK, this film is totally miscast. The 'Gangsters' don't begin to look like gangsters. They look like Germans wearing funny costumes! The story, about a killer who is assigned a series of killings by some corrupt police officers is hardly suspenseful and yes, drags for the 70 (!!) minute screening time. And finally the women are, well, German.

Oh dear, am I going to get flak for this one.