Enfant Terrible

Rainer Werner Fassbinder used to be very important to me in growing up. Discovering a barely known name making an official movie about his life and all the ones that went along with him was simply asking for disaster. Behold the result: way over the top acting, as if Larry Hagman had a bad day at the set of the takes on Dallas, and it just keeps on growing worse. The picture soils my fond memories of Gunter Lamprecht and Hanna Schygulla, letting them be performed by outside resemblances but just nothing more; bah. It's not a good movie and it most likely will not get any better in the future. There was only one Fassbinder-genius and he is no more.

Well, this time I got the right "Enfant Terrible" film, not that atrocity of the film art called "L'Enfant Terrible"... so I could enjoy the story of one of my favorite directors - Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

I watched and enjoyed many of his movies but I wasn't really aware how screwed his life was! Oskar Roehler delivered a realistically portrayed biography of Rainer Werner Fassbinder - a kind of political manifesto intertwined with subject's personal life! It was done so well, that I could fully immerse into the weirdness, awkwardness and sickness of the guy who was a real genius, but lasted only 36 years on this Earth because could not control his urge for the self-destruction!

Difficult to watch but always fascinating with very interesting directing choices!

In this case, it is half of the title that says it all. To be exact, it is the second half of the title. Shallow parody about the life of an overrated film director who would not make ends meet today. His abusive nature would get him off any gig immediately. Unwatchable, almost like most of his original films today.

Fassbinder was a really productive director, and there has already been several books about him. This is probably the first film. The format is bad suited, I don't feel that I get a portrait of Fassbinder and neither his work as a director. He just jumps from one bad relationship to the next, uses drugs and acts like a douchbag to everyone else.

Everything in the film takes place inside what obviously is a studio and the backgrounds are painted, if Fassbinder ever worked in a German expressionist way this could have explained it as an artistic choice but it just feels cheap.

The film takes place between 1976 to 1982, they have casted an actor born 1968. He is perfect as the older Fassbinder but when he is supposed to be 22 and he is 30 years older in real life, it was just cringe.

It felt more like they didn't have the money to have a younger cast.

If I didn't know anything about Fassbinder or his films I think I wouldn't been able to follow the story.

This actually may be the most accessible and the most commercial thing about Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I would like to believe that even people who are not into him, would find something here they might like ... having said that, the movie is a biopic that feels like a stage play most of the time ... and it also has nudity and a lot of other things (gay love for example) that some may have issues with.

It is not for the faint hearted for sure or those who are easily offended. Do not watch this if you are in one of these groups. Watch if you are curious what drove a man that seems missunderstood a lot. Or at least that is how he feels. They are things here that defy any political correctness - use of the n word and much more. Now it is just giving you what it was like and what people said and did ... you are the one who will be the judge - what you make of these things.

Very good acting involved and at least for me a new perspective on an individual I did not have before (not sure how fans of his might react to certain things)