Despair

Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a difficult director to love or hate. For every exceptional and original film he made (such as "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" and "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven"), he then made two which were bizarre and artsy...and the sort of stuff most folks would hate ("Querelle" quickly comes to mind). To me, "Despair" falls into this latter category...a film the average person wouldn't normally see in the first place but which they would hate. And, a film that artsy folks would adore. I like some artsy films but found this one interminably boring even though it stars one of my favorite actors, Dirk Bogarde.

The film is set in the final years of the Weimar Republic...during the rise of the Nazis in the early 30s. Herman (Bogarde) is a Jewish Russian emigree who owns a successful candy company. However, he appears to be losing his mind through the course of the story and he has a strange obsession that a homeless man is his doppleganger....even though the man looks little like Herman. At first, Herman befriends the man and offers him a job...later you learn that Herman's kindness is a mask for his own sinister plans.

For me, watching this film was about as much fun at staring at the wall for 90 minutes. Slow and plodding beyond belief as well as nonsensical, I simply found watching this strange film to be nearly impossible the more I watched.