Prenez garde à la sainte putain

The disparity in the comments for this film really speaks to how much Fassbinder is a matter of taste, although a lot of the complaints might be due to all the references within the film to other films and to Fassbinder's own life. I'll just add that I loved this film, but I enjoy all of Fassbinder's work, even to the point where they make you dizzy or despise the man and all he wants to say. He is definitely NOT for most people...especially those who don't appreciate dry German humor. I was laughing through this whole thing...especially the way he mocks the way the traveling film company treats the local Italians (the film was set in Spain, but I believe it was actually shot in Ischia.)

You might enjoy it more if you understand a few things I noticed about it: 1) No one really pointed out how autobiographical it is...to an extreme. Since Fassbinder is using many of the friends he worked with in experimental theatre, they are essentially all playing each other, and obviously enjoying it. This makes the movie essential for Fassbinder fans. 2) There's Eddie Constantine, so this, technically, is Fassbinder's contribution to the Lemmy Caution series, much as Godard did with "Alphaville". 3) Another cinephile noted the reference to "Last Year at Marienbad"; the entire broken style of the end of the film seems to me a gentle mocking of all the Nouvelle Roman and experimental film coming out of Europe at the end of the 1960s. 4) This makes an interesting comparison not just with "Day for Night", but also "The State of Things", Wim Wenders film-within-a-film. I've also seen this film called boring, and it certainly could be seen as such; making movies IS boring. Fassbinder's interpretation is actually racing along compared to Wenders', but Wenders always has his exquisite cinematography to fall back upon. If you call it "boring", it is only because you've failed to accommodate the intent of the film. If it was trying to tell an exciting story, yeah, you would see it as a failure. But as a character study of a film company on location (I believe they were actually filming "Whity" at the same time in Ischia), this is relatively quick, to the point (less!) and a great opportunity to see how the earliest Fassbinder envisioned his own early success.

Fassbinder's 1971 film about a German film crew waiting for a production to start whilst on set in a Spanish hotel lobby.

The film starts with the verbal recanting of a Goofy cartoon. This is possibly the most linear part of the entire film's narrative but that's not an insult. The rest of the film shows fragments of how the characters interact on many different levels. The movie also shows the power relations and how these shift throughout the film's duration.

The film crew resemble a Germanic version of the trope of superstars Warhol used to use. With waiting comes emotions ranging from an utter lack of enthusiasm through to explosive rage about proceedings not starting when they should or crew members not doing what they should when filming does actually begin.

This film was based on Fassbinder's experiences of making the film Whity. It must have been hell for him judging by the events depicted here.

If you're looking for a film with a linear narrative, a 'start, middle and end', if you will, this isn't for you. But if you're looking to be swept away by Fassbinder into a film that is more of an experience, then you'll love this.

Nearly all of the reviews I have read about this film mention its "dullness" or "boredom". Someone compared him with Truffaut earlier, I think it is important to remember that although Fassbinder was certainly influenced by French New Wave, he was essentially a German film-maker with a completely unique approach to his work. So, if u find his films boring because you are expecting to watch another Jules et Jim, then I think u set yourself up for disappointment. I think the slow pace of the film re-creates an environment (namely the filming of the previous Fassbinder film, whitey) and achieves its purpose masterfully, combining all the sexual, emotional,and mental frustration of making a film.

"Warnung Vor Einer Heiligen Nutte" (1971) is everything else than an obscure, hermetic and highly stylized movie. Before you watch this masterpiece of the middler Fassbinder, you should read the biography by Peter Berling, "Die 13 Jahres Des Rainer Werner Fassbinder" (1992). Peter Berling was also the producer of the "Holy Whore" and acted a part in it. It is a very precise description of practically all members of Fassbinder's troop since the time of the "antiteater". However, the persons have been exchanged. So, f.ex. Magdalena Montezuma plays "Irm", i.e. Irm Hermann, who also is the dubbing voice of Montezuma. She accuses "Jeff Kocsinsky", the director of the picture "Morte o Patria", of having stolen her years, promised to marry her and have children with her. Jeff is of course Fassbinder, while Fassbinder himself plays the role of "Sasha", probably an invented role. However, it is astonishing that Fassbinder's family agreed to unwrap their own and not only personal but highly private problems in front of the public. A highlight in this respect is "Fred" alias Kurt Raab. He is the artistic director of the movie - as he was in his real life, a weak and subordinate creature depending on love or hatred of his always changing lovers. It shows anew what a magnificent actor Raab was. Lou Castel as Fassbinder alias "Jeff" does a very great job. The same man who is determined to make a movie against brutal state force is using on the set all imaginable means of force up to terror against his actors and staff. Concluding, I would even say that "The Holy Whore" is a example of bravura of how one can make a movie with basically nothing, if there is a group who is determined to create something together.

Fassbinder ends this film with a quote from Thomas Mann that expresses his tiredness in representing the human species, without being part of it. This could well be the key to interpreting not only this film, but almost all of Fassbinder's work.

In a world divided between capitalist tyranny and socialist hypocrisy, there is no real place for Fassbinder and his troupe, representative of a generation that wants to be above bourgeois values, but finds no alternatives, falling into nihilism and depression.

In retrospect, we can believe that Fassbinder's discomfort stemmed, in large part, from the rejection of homosexuality, whether by fascist moralism or socialist progressivism. The sexual freedom of the sixties did not yet include homosexuality, and Fassbinder, using shock therapy in his films, was one of the staunchest critics of this hypocritical sexual revolution.

The film tells the story of a film production, which takes place in a haphazard manner, in a Sorrento painted in Francoist Spain, as a metaphor for a society and a revolution of mentalities, which is also slow to happen.

Meanwhile, Cuba Libres are drunk, in honor of the revolution.