Il matrimonio di Maria Braun

Alright already, get over it, was Handke's comment to the 1968 meeting of the Gruppe 48 -- those writers who wanted to "heal" from the war. Well Fassbinder doesn't want to heal, he wants to indict. And this movie, probably his most accessible, takes a woman as the symbol for the nation-- a theme common to prehistoric oral literature, particularly among the Irish, made famous by Grimmelshausen's Mother Courage and updated by Brecht's play. But in this version, instead of the tragic Mother trying to save her children and mourning them, Maria Braun sells out for comfort from collaboration with the Nazi's through the economic wonder "Wirtschaftswunder" of the cold war. This was Fassbinder's big hit, because he toned down his politics both sexual and marxist, to focus on the loss of soul that Germany experienced. It was also Hanna Schygulla's Oscar worthy performance, probably one of her best of many great ones. Like little Oskar from the Tin Drum, Maria Braun was stunted by the experience, only on the inside.

Having heard of this film for years, I didn't see it until 2003! Perhaps it's just as well that I waited. It is one of the finest films of its type -- post WW2 in Germany -- that I've ever seen; perhaps on balance the finest.

It seems to me that rather than being a cynical portrayal of those difficult years, it is more truthful and revelatory in a deep way. I imagine that no one other than those who lived then can begin to tell the story, which is why Fassbinder has tried on our behalf -- to try to convey to us the angst, the frustrations, the sadness, the insanity, the querulousness, the fragile hope of that era.

I find the story very sad, of course, because in my early-21st century psyche I'm more tuned into the love story than I am the tale of the sociology and social psychology of an era that occurred when I was very young. It seems to me that if one views the characters as representatives of some of the major "world views" obtaining during the reconstruction period, one sees a few of the many different human reactions there can be to such an experience: Many feel burned out and can't feel hope any longer; others, like Maria, feel there is at least money and position to be gained under the new dispensation; some simply don't care; others try to feed off the experience without contributing; and so on and so forth.

It also occurred to me that, at age 60, I may be in a position to appreciate this film more, and certainly to be more understanding of and sympathetic with the characters/types portrayed. I found each of them to have an important story to tell, whether it was a "good" story or not. And the character of the Black US Army Sergeant, while tragic at the end, was itself an essay in human relations that has to embarrass most Americans -- the fleeting moments when he and Maria found joy and pleasant times together were just wonderful to behold, and an indictment of our sad history in that regard.

View it and see what you think!

Maria Braun got married right in the middle of combat all around her and her husband Hermann. An explosion ripped through the building, to begin with, and she and Hermann had to sign the papers on a pile of rubble on the street. Perhaps this may strike some as a heavy-handed metaphor for what's about to come: marriage on the rocks, so to speak. It's a betrothal where the husband goes off to war and is held in a Russian prison camp, unbenownst to the helpless but hopeful and proud Maria, who keeps standing by the depressing rubble of the train station as some come home, others don't, with a sign awaiting Hermann.

Trouble arises, as happens in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's melodramas, and as its one of his best and most provocative, we see as Maria (uncommonly gorgeous Hanna Schygulla in this role) will do a two-face: she'll stand by her man, even if it means working at a bar for American GI's and, even still after she hears from a fellow soldier that Hermann has died will still stand by him as she sleeps with a black GI and comes close to bearing his child (that is, naturally, until he reappears and a murder occurs and he takes the rap so she can be safe), or working for a German businessman (effectively sympathetic Ivan Desny) and becoming his sometimes mistress and rising star in the company. Maria will do whatever it takes to be successful, but she'll always be married.

It's hard to say there's anything about Maria that isn't fascinating. Money, sex, power, all of these become interchangeable for Maria. She's like the feminist that has her cake and eats it with a sultry smile: she gets to have a husband, more or less (actually a lot less until the last ten minutes of the film) while obtaining things- a man who dotes on her whenever he can, a new and expensive house with servants, a secretary, money- that others around her aren't getting due to already being with a man or too weak in a position to rise anywhere (such as the secretary, played interestingly enough by Fassbinder's own mother).

Maria is sexy, confident, and all alone, with an idealized life going against a life that should be made in the shade. She says of the two men- the American soldier and poor old and sick Oswald- that she's fond of them, and at the same time will stick by those roses the confused and soul-searching husband Hermann sends from Canada, after being released from prison. She's casts a profile that a feminist would love to trounce, but understand where she's coming from and going all the way.

Fassbinder employs this inherent contradiction, and moments with Maria appear to go against the conventions of a melodrama (for example, Hermann walking in on the jubilant and half-naked Maria and GI is just about a masterpiece of a scene, with Maria's reaction not of surprise or guilt but pure happiness to see that he's there let alone alive), while sticking to his guns as a director of such high-minded technique with a storyline that should be predictable. But it isn't really. It's like one big metaphor for a country that, after the war, couldn't really move on to normalcy. A few times Fassbinder puts sound of the radio on in the background, and we see Maria walking around her family house, hustle and bustle going on around her, and the radio speaks of a divided Germany, of things still very unsettled, of a disarray. Maybe the only way to cope is excess, or maybe that's just my interpretation of it.

It's hard to tell, really, under Schygulla's stare face and eyes, anyway. It's such an incredible performance, really, one of those showstoppers that captures the glamor and allure of an old-time Hollywood female star while with the down-and-dirty ethic of a girl of the streets. Most telling are the opposing costumes one sees in one scene when she finally is with her husband, where she stars in one of those super-lustful black lingerie pieces and high heels, and then moves on to a dress without even thinking about it. That's almost the essence of what Maria is, and Schygulla wonderfully gets it down, a headstrong but somehow loving figure who is adored and perplexed by the men around her, sometimes in a single sentence. This is what Fassbinder captures in his wonderful first part of his "trilogy"; while I might overall prefer Veronika Voss as a masterpiece, Maria Braun is perhaps just as good as a character study, of what makes a woman tick and tock with (almost) nothing to lose.

A complex, pessimistic tale of post WWII Germany, this is one of Fassbinder's masterpieces that brings a step beyond the classic melodrama form articulated by Douglas Sirk. When Hanna Schygulla says to her husband in prison `this are bad times for feelings' it is Fassbinder saying that in the seventies cinema there's no place for the classic melodrama of the 40s and 50s, unless all the craze that then was suggested now turns somehow more explicit. Fassbinder has a quality of elevating low elements into the realms of High Art, not only through the services of his personal use of the camera, but also through an admirable compassion towards his material.

We watched this film in our German Cinema class at university some years ago, and I still remember it well.

Without wishing to give too much away, it tells the tale of a woman who, seeing the desolate landscape that Germany was in 1945, determines to build herself a comfortable life and, as she does so, she becomes one of many women in Germany rebuilding the nation. This was a time, historically, when the women were a greater driving force in the social and economic rebuilding of the nation than were the men (who were both lacking in credibility following the horrors and the mess of the years past, and somewhat dazed by what the nation had just been through).

As she builds that life (and in so doing helps to rebuild the nation), however, she finds that she may have sacrificed too much.

It is a movie worth watching in order to gain some understanding of what life was like in Germany from 1945 to roughly 1970. Rainer Fassbinder makes use of images in places which show the transition of German society from broken ruins to economic superpower, the changing status of women in German society over that time period, the changing attitudes both within Germany and from outside toward Germany, and the sacrifices that women were prepared to make in order to build the Germany that they ultimately did. It also asks, though, if the single-minded pursuit of rebuilding the nation economically and materially did not take too much out of the nation and the people in other areas.

I enjoyed the movie, and am happy to recommend it.