La Troisième Génération

Fassbinder at the peak of his creative powers. Die dritte Generation is as funny as it is scary, and is just as relevant today as it was when it was first released almost 25 years ago. Aesthetically as well as thematically, this is one of the director's most fascinating - along with Die Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (1974).

In Berlin, a cell of terrorist composed by middle-class people is activated with the sentence "The World as Will and Idea", based on the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer "The World as Will and Representation". They plan to abduct the businessman P. J. Lurz ( Eddie Constantine) that works with sales of computers, while they are chased by a persistent chief of police.

"Die Dritte Generation" a.k.a. "The Third Generation" is a weird, hermetic, disconnected but mesmerizing film of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, divided in six chapters and dedicated to those who truly love (meaning no one in the vision of the director). The plot explores the concept of terrorism and the contradictions of the middle- class and apparently the central idea is based on Schopenhauer's central work. Unfortunately I do not have knowledge in philosophy, sociology or political science to fully understand this inaccessible film. Fassbinder uses unusual angles with his camera and strange sounds to expose with irony the bourgeois values of each ridiculous terrorist of this generation that does not have ideology. In the end, I liked this collection of ideas in spite of I have not clearly understood the film as a whole. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Terceira Geração" ("The Third Generation")

High hopes and expectations were crushed with this little film of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a great talent by all accounts but he went overboard with this bizarre satire that goes nowhere (or close to that). "The Third Generation" and its wild act of presenting us a potential future dominated by technological security appartus and how left-wing anarchists can insurge themselves against the powers of capitalism and greedy corporations offer a shallow, verbose and messy critcism of everything and everyone, that never gets to be funny neither serious. And the thing about satire is that through a careful and detailed analysis of a living context, the period in which the artist lives, it must be either a funny thing offering amusing jabs at whatever is being target of criticism or ridicule - even if it's all about nervous laughter - or painfully dramatic to shock or disturb audiences, like a punch in the stomach; and with both ways the thinking audience will confront itself with possible solutions to the problematic presented.

The basic premise sounds very appealing: a radical group elaborates a criminal plan against a powerful international corporation. Barely they know that they're being used as a tool for a political party to active their powers and become a bigger thing. Mr. Fassbinder trips and falls with such story as there's plenty of talks that goes without coherence, almost no action, and long titles covering the screen in a chapter format presenting texts and words found on Germany's real public toilets, going form political perspectives, sex hookups descriptions and jokes (this whole toilet thing would make a nice film concept or a weird but fun documentary).

The ultimate take I got from it was that the director/writer was probably saying that radical left groups are all talk and no action or they lose themselves through sex, drugs and classic literature.

It's kind of a shameful critique as he only looked for that German context, and to expose that without seeing what happened in South and Central America or other nations going through repressive politics at the time, is very problematic. There was a lot going on in those groups with vision, attitude and the persuit for a better society. The reality wasn't funny, and neither this somewhat spoof of things.

I tried hard to like and accept this film, but despite some interesting moments here and there (the cast is alright, as a majority of them were part of Fassbinder group), it just lost me halfway through. Couldn't find a valid criticism of anything, everything and everyone seems missplaced and random, and no possible solutions were offered to this alternative reality, neither answers were given to its peculiar things (Why the group had to deal with the junkie girl in their apartment? Why they accept her lover so easily and how they convinced him to join their cause?). If given a proper treatment, there'd be a good story to be seen instead of the emptiness and rambling of it all. 4/10.

Along with In A Year of 13 Moons, this is the only other Fassbinder film on which the director/writer/producer also served as director of photography. Like that film it features bold striking compositions and rich colours that are perfectly saturated and stylized to the right amount. The Third Generation was made in 1979 two years after the German Autumn, the crackdown of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Despite it's topicality however Fassbinder's film is about the future about the world of tomorrow as exemplified by it's evocation of science-fiction masterpieces like Solaris mentioned and cited in this film, the casting of the star of Alphaville, Eddie Constantine as the head of a computer business organization and the constant presence of technology in this film, either off-screen(speakers and recording equipment) or on-screen(TV screens and later guns and bombs). The score by Peer Raben is appropriately electronic.

The story of The Third Generation is hard to summarize or describe and most people won't understand one bit of this film when they see it for the first time. See it twice and thrice and then it adds up. The story is just as fragmented as the personalities and lives of it's characters. The terrorist cell at the center of the film is a group of mostly middle-class misfits and apathetic junkies who are a mass of unresolved tensions and contradictions. Bulle Ogier's a stern history teacher(crucially introduced to us discussing the 1848 revolution in Prussia) but she's also a would-be feminist who submits to becoming a sex toy of Paul the "leader" of the group. Hanna Schygulla is your average bubbly corporate secretary but she's also carrying out a sado-masochistic affair with her father-in-law. Most of these "terrorists" activities for the first half are relegated to living in an apartment of a drug addicted young girl, later joined by her former boyfriend and his friend. Their activities here are confined to juvenile games and irritating each other out of their skulls later extended to breaking-and-entering and bank robbery. The sole murder committed by them is revenge acted out by a submissive over the dominant.

The actions of the police, the business interests, the government bureaucracy however is that of self-justification, of ruthless exercise of power and repression whose machinery ultimately incorporates these terrorists willingly and unwillingly.

The relation of this film to our current-day hell-hole needs little elaboration. This is a film for the 21st Century, the children of the third generation, one just as compromised and confused as it's forebears.

This director thinks terrorism is a stupid joke. The third generation of terror here is a bunch of bored citizens who are dumb enough not to wonder who is giving out the money that pays for their guns. It's a quite scary and funny way to look at contemporary society and some of its extremely radical enemies. Some viewers might find it disturbing instead of hilarious.