Despair

Fassbinder turns Nabokov into a multi-level visually stimulating art piece that is challenging to the mind, and where mirrors play with dreams and reality, insanity and absurdity, and a complex geopolitical situation in Nazi Germany. turns Nabokov into a multi-level visually stimulating art piece that is challenging to the mind, and where mirrors play with dreams and reality, insanity and absurdity, and a complex geopolitical situation in Nazi Germany.

It's hard for me to stay away from excessive use of superlatives when commenting on what I consider to be Fassbinder's masterpiece. Michael Ballhaus has filmed more than a dozen Fassbinder films, and Despair is a fine example of the value of their collaboration. Several images are stunningly memorable: the water dripping on the eggshells in the sink; the circular tracking shot through the glass walls of Hermann Hermann's office revealing him in his cage; and the auto-voyeurism of Hermann watching himself in bed with his voluptuous, vacant Frau. Doing justice to Nabokov's compelling dialog and canny character studies has been well done before in Kubrick's Lolita, but Tom Stoppard's rendition here was a perfect match for Fassbinder's (and Ballhaus's) visual feast. And if you are somehow not yet a fan of Dirk Bogarde, seeing his performance in Despair will surely make you as ardent an admirer of his work as I have become.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a difficult director to love or hate. For every exceptional and original film he made (such as "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" and "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven"), he then made two which were bizarre and artsy...and the sort of stuff most folks would hate ("Querelle" quickly comes to mind). To me, "Despair" falls into this latter category...a film the average person wouldn't normally see in the first place but which they would hate. And, a film that artsy folks would adore. I like some artsy films but found this one interminably boring even though it stars one of my favorite actors, Dirk Bogarde.

The film is set in the final years of the Weimar Republic...during the rise of the Nazis in the early 30s. Herman (Bogarde) is a Jewish Russian emigree who owns a successful candy company. However, he appears to be losing his mind through the course of the story and he has a strange obsession that a homeless man is his doppleganger....even though the man looks little like Herman. At first, Herman befriends the man and offers him a job...later you learn that Herman's kindness is a mask for his own sinister plans.

For me, watching this film was about as much fun at staring at the wall for 90 minutes. Slow and plodding beyond belief as well as nonsensical, I simply found watching this strange film to be nearly impossible the more I watched.

What can I say -- watch the film. And don't read the other posters comments -- he didn't like the film, or even bother finishing it but felt compelled to make a list of pointless spoilers in his useless comments.

This was Fassbinders shot at 'commercialism', which he failed at entirely (thankfully) but we are left with a thoughtful examination of the boundaries between self awareness and delusion. A metaphor for post war Germany? Who am I to be so pretentious ...

Strong performances, provocative script, not a light romp but neither is it a heavy slog.

CC

This movie is disturbing. The main character seems to be going a bit crazy. And the political climate of the country looks no better. We know that the war is coming, and will be terrifying. The people in this movie seem to have a strange hunch about all this terrible possibilities just around the corner. They probably feel there's no hope of stopping the process. They decide to get drunk. To enjoy the last days of a dying world. But the guy might not be going totally crazy after all. He has a plan.