Le secret de Veronika Voss

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's second-but-last film does not show primarily the life and downfall of the UFA-star Sybille Schmitz, but gives, at the hand of the Schmitz-inspired, yet fictive character Veronika Voss an unvarnished and hopeless picture of the Bundesrepublik Germany in the 50ies. Part of Fassbinder's "BRD-Trilogy", it is also one of his 4 "women"-films, besides "Lola", "Maria Braun", and "Lili Marleen".

It is hard to say if the main focus of this movie is the former UFA-star Veronika Voss or the sports reporter Robert Krohn. One rainy night, he meets, in a little forest amidst of Berlin, a crying little bundle of mensch who seems to have completely lost her orientation. She is not so much thankful for his help but astonished that he does not recognize her: the great Veronika Voss. After he accompanies the woman to her door, she continues to occupy his mind. He asks his older colleagues who confirm him that she was once a movies' super-star, but now forgotten, divorced, impoverished, addicted and out of work. Soon, they meet again, and between Krohn, who is in a steady liaison, and Veronika, who sees in him one of her once many admirers, a very problematic love story starts which costs two humans' lives, leaves an investigative mind back in despair, discloses the corruption between medicine and politics and portrays the deterrent situation in the post-war German film industry which used his former flagships as fuel.

R.W. Fassbinder got for this films the "Golden Bear" out of the hand of Jimmy Stewart who was his friend for many years. Fassbinder had been nominated for the highest German film price since a long time, but it was Stewart who realized that soon it might come too late. Fassbinder passed away only a few days after having received the Golden Bear.

Like many other Fassbinder films "Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss" tells about a decline and is very depressing. It is a visually stunning film that shows how much Fassbinder admired the classical Hollywood cinema and especially the films of Douglas Sirk. Like the films of his idol this film is stylish and artificial to an extreme extent which creates quite a distance between itself and the audience. Probably an even greater distance, since the style and the artificiality are used more consciously here, even as a instrument of alienation. So it is more fascinating than touching or even moving and might leave one even cold. Nevertheless the story is intriguing and it really tells something about the post war society in West Germany, so the film is interesting and even fascinating to watch. The scene where Rosel Zech as Veronika sings "Memories Are Made Of This" is very haunting, a gem.

This sumptuous black and white period piece, tells the story of a once famous film star, Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech). After a chance encounter on a bus with Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate), there lives are entwined, with Krohn finding himself trapped in a cat-and-mouse search for Voss's sanity, her past lives, and the many sycophants and gold diggers in 1950's Germany. Voss, now struggling to find work after a highly successful period, particularly in the 1940's, is addicted to drugs and alcohol and has paranoid delusions when out on the street; Krohn is pulled into this as he did not recognise who she was, and she vaguely sees him as protection.

One of the last of Fassbinder's films - he died of an overdose (the official conclusion was suicide) in 1982 - which was also the last of a trilogy focusing on Germany's economic boom in the 1950's (the others being The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) and Lola (1981)), the film also reflects some of the themes that the New German Cinema at the time. It was a time that Germany was reflective of World War 2, and the trauma that prevailed in a country torn between guilt and a resurgence of decadence and wealth as in the 1920's Weimar Republic. It is stated in the film that Voss's best period was during this period, and that she had been the star of Nazi Germany. After the fall of Nazi domination, she was cast aside.

Like Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), Veronika Voss highlights an industry that can easily create monsters, and also devastate lives. But unlike Wilder's subtle version of lost fame, Fassbinder shows the devastating effects of drug addiction, and the underbelly of society that is encountered in this process. Historically though, this is deeper and a hell of a lot more emotionally charged and interesting than Sunset. After all, this is not a Hollywood story, but is a post-World War 2 story of judgement, and loss after such a integrally debasing event in human history. How do you continue after working under the despotic power of the Nazi party? The elements of Nazi Germany are still in process, in the form of Veronika's control.

The film is said to be based upon the real-life German film actress, Sybille Schmitz, who died of an overdose in 1955 at the tender age of 45. The film shows shows that the shadow of the war had a lasting effect on the German nation, that would take decades to come to terms with. This is film making par excellence. Haunting, beautiful, with a climax that is inevitable, shocking, but very satisfactory. Rosel Zech's performance is pitch perfect, her face in a constant state of anguish.

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In her own eyes,Veronika Voss is not really alive unless she retains her audience, unless she is loved and admired for her manufactured image. There are times in movies when Technicolor will not do, when the use of traditional black and white evokes evokes film noir, in this case referencing Billy Wilder's brilliant evisceration of and the pain of fading fame, Sunset Boulevard. The fine shadings of mood and atmosphere reflect the life led by Veronika under studio lights, just as the stark, unrelenting whites at her doctor's office blind her to reality during her visits for morphine injections.

Veronika Voss is based on the life of an actual German actress who rarely came alive unless under the lights, depicting a harsh and unrelenting life lived vicariously; it is a harsh look at a cruel existence increasingly dependent on addictive drugs to soften the hard knocks that come with the loss of fame and inability to face simultaneous aging process; it is a film worth repeated viewings.

Beautifully photographed in simple black and white, with some lovely gliding shots and some interesting camera angles and framing, the film is an amazement on a visual scope, even if the screenplay and acting are nothing special. Fassbinder's choice of lighting is excellent, giving true stark contrast between areas of black and areas of white in certain scenes. Sound is a significant aspect too, with soft radio recording heard in the background of just about every scene. The meaning behind such an audio style is not clear, but still it provides an interesting feel if not much else. As already alluded to however, the technical aspects outweigh the rest of the film. It is a rather cold tale with awkward characters, which are hard to sympathise with. Towards the end it also goes off on a bit of a tangent, from being a drama to a thriller. The film definitely seems more dedicated to its style than its substance, but that only makes is a certainly degree less fascinating to watch. The style quite literally sparkles and the film applies a few interesting editing tricks to change from scene to scene. If not involving as a tale, it is nevertheless great "eye candy".