User reviews

This is a melancholic semi-documentary about the West Germany's traumatic autumn called as "Deutschland Herbst". The prominent businessman Hanns Martin Schleyer who was a member of the board of directors in Daimler Benz and leader in several employer and industry associations was kidnapped and killed by extreme-left RAF. He was formerly SS worked as an important deputy and adviser to Bernhard Adolf, one of the German economic leaders. Schleyer's uncompromising position towards workers made him a target in the West Germany.

The movie plays with different positionalities. Germany democracy is facing with a hard challenge after the WW2. If you do not know much about these events, you better read about it. The Businesman's chic funeral, his ex-SS experience and policies in the West Germany, RAF's actions are all putting you in a mixed feeling. Left and democracy are under pressure with a lack of hope. I felt like RAF was representation of this hopelessness.

It is a very simplistic semi-documentary but very successful. End of the movie was very moving with the song "A Tu Salud". I highly recommend you to see it. Despite you may not know much about Germany or the specific context, it has a lot of relevance to today's democracy and freedom problems.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, possibly the greatest of all filmmakers, presents one of his major achievements to start off this topical omnibus. Portraying his own life as the stuff of cinema, Fassbinder gives us the rare film where players play themselves and the situations seem entirely believable. Featuring Fassbinder, his lover Armin Mier, and his Mother, all in uncompromising self-portrayals. This is Fassbinder's most radical and important work.

I must admit I have not yet made it to the later portions of Germany in Autumn, as I am so taken by Fassbinder's segment, which is the first after a short intro, that I have not been able to move on to the next without distraction. However, If you have any interest in Fassbinder, or Germany, or Cinema, I would highly recommend hunting down this rarely-seen treasure.

This seems to be the message of this movie. Why was it that terrible? There are no answers in here. The German police had captured the leaders of the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion) and some RAF members took hostages to obtain their release. The German government didn't comply. It was the dominant topic of the year. There are fundamental ethical issues behind this conflict. This movie doesn't seriously address them at all. Fassbinder presents his opinion: In a democracy the state would have to do the exchange, otherwise it would be fascism. Shallow thoughts and buzzwords, that's all they have to offer, the artists and intellectuals, who collaborated in the making of this anthology film.

"Deutschland im Herbst" isn't about arguments, it's about moods. Sadness, resignation, paranoia, doom and gloom. The film does not convey what agitated its makers so much, it only shows that they were. Rainer Werner Fassbinder uses his segment to stage himself as a despaired democrat. He abuses his lover and his mother as foils, representing the "reactionary" and "undemocratic" majority in Germany, a move that should not garner him much sympathy.

The movie starts with the solemn state memorial service of one of the terrorists' victims. It ends with the funeral of three RAF leaders, with some RAF supporters using the stage for protests. The rest of the segments looks very much like the safe and arbitrary stuff Alexander Kluge was known for.

The RAF terrorists wanted to ignite a communist revolution in West Germany. That pipe dream died long before 1977. What was their legacy? The state became stronger, more resilient, more efficient. The functional elites became less approachable, more aloof. In hindsight, the hysterics and their support for a lost - or more accurately: stillborn - cause look rather unsophisticated.

Compared to today, the Germany of 1977 appears to have been simple, down-to-earth, assessable, humane. Everything got much worse, of course. The segment written by Heinrich Böll and directed by Volker Schlöndorff is about a board of functionaries at a public-service television broadcaster, who postpone the broadcast of the televisation of a tragedy by Sophocles, because it could somehow, very esoterically influence the public debate in unwelcome ways. Oh, the sweet old days! Today the programm of the public TV stations consists of insipid serials, quiz shows and sports. No more Sophocles, no more classics, no more cultural education.

Fassbinder pretends to be very much afraid that the police could show up any moment to arrest him. Why? No reasons, it's just an act. Today and in the world of Palantir there are very good reasons to be paranoid. Maybe he communicated with someone, who is under suspicion. Maybe he once said something that the now omnipresent spies reported. An intrusive, presumptuous, all-controlling state? If only you knew how bad things would really get, kids, you would have enjoyed your time a lot more.

"Deutschland im Herbst" is a fairly dull movie. The patient viewer might still find something of value in this contemporary document. ("Bad German Movies"-Review No. 32)