Peur de la peur

Gilman's classic short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" seems to be the model for this Fassbinder TV movie (not American TV--that's obvious). As in the original story, post-partum depression is only the immediate cause of the heroine's depressed, anxious and eventual insane state. In the story, the narrator's crisis is certainly located in patriarchy. I do not know Fassbinder or his work well enough to know whether Margo (Margit Carstensen) is suffering from straight up alienation or the patriarchal blues but most of the indicators point to the latter. There is far more focus on marriage here and male disinterest in or mis-readings of Margo's suffering than on social dislocation per se. Both the husband and the sincere, sympathetic brother-in-law fail, like the physician husband in the story, to grasp, to one degree or another, the nature of Margo's pain, which lead in both pieces, to deeper isolation and madness.

Perhaps Margit Carstensen's performance determines how one likes or dislikes this film. I thought it was as convincing as her ill looks, her ill eyes, her ill expressions, but I'm sure some viewers will disagree. For them, perhaps the film's restraint, honesty, and intelligence can be the difference maker.

I don't think I've ever been as struck by the camera movement in a Fassbinder film as I was by that in this one. It makes this chamber drama seem less claustrophobic, but also more panicked, than it would otherwise seem. And, as the title suggests, it is pretty panicked.

Fassbinder's most frequent muse is Douglas Sirk, but here he seems to me more inspired by Nicholas Ray, especially by Bigger Than Life, with a father figure turning towards drugs as an escape from domestic drudgery replaced by a mother figure. This film also probably directly influenced Todd Haynes when he was creating Safe. But I think Fear of Fear is emotionally and intellectually richer than either it's ancestor or descendant.

what they hey I'll go ahead and give it a 7 which it seems to me is high high praise here in general, whereas I tend towards the extremes.

it's interesting to see MC in this sort of role, the husband and brother in law characters are very touching. the PR score is quite different from the music in other of Fassbinder's films, you can just about hear that it's by the same composer. this is appropriate given the exceptional nature of the story and theme. Still, the story doesn't really amount to a lot... somehow... and just kind of stops rather than coming to any sort of satisfying close.

at least tonight I got to see a Fassbinder film I never saw before. I think there might be only a couple left. wish someone would resurrect his version of Cukor's "The Women"... which has completely found its niche in obscurity somehow...

Margot is a young, beautiful housewife living in comfy middle class apartment with her ever busy husband, daughter and new baby on the way. Near the end of her term she starts to feel uneasy, "hysteric" and fearful. Margot seems to be losing her mind, and what's worse, starts to believe it. Now she has to persuade other members of her family to take notice....

This is the story of woman in the midst of personal crisis, abandoned, frustrated and feeling trapped by her own life. Developing some sort of dissociation and facing frequent depressive episodes she focuses on herself forgetting about her "duties" as mother and wife along the way. She slowly transforms from quiet, submissive wife to rebellious infant terrible. Margot is taking further steps to distant herself from every day life, cold husband and nosy mother and sister in law - living next door. In fact she sheds middle class skin and runs from clichés and expectations the society has forced upon her. Of course, she's not very subtle while doing it: her goal is to draw attention to herself.

She descends into madness she once feared and - just like the rest of the "normal" people around her - mocked, embracing it by now. More pills another sip of cognac...and the fear takes a step back. Husband starts to take notice, he is worried, but Margot might be too far gone.

Essentially, without preaching or intervening, Fassbinder just tells a story, no clear solutions, no answers to why is this woman so sad and resentful of her life. But I find this portrayal very true to life (for those who can afford it) and psychologically compelling. Sometimes it's the way sensitive individuals protest against the expectations and shelves they are being stuffed into...sometimes the fear of losing oneself while playing the role is just overwhelming.

The fear of finding the true self...and never finding the true self.

Really, the plot is nothing different than your average movie on the Lifetime cable network: a woman suffers from post-partem depression while no one around her seems to care much; eventually, she becomes addicted to Valium and alcohol. But what a difference a genius can make, and Fassbinder is clearly a genius. And his lead actress, Margit Carstensen, gives an absolutely brilliant performance. It's a small and subtle picture (made for television, actually), and I wonder if anyone else would be as impressed as I was. But I really felt that Fassbinder and Carstensen captured something remarkable here. The other actors are fine, as well. Ulrich Faulhaber plays her odd husband. He cares for his wife, but probably not in the way she needs. I noticed early in the film that he never touches his wife, and later in the film his mother complains that it is abnormal the way the mother hugs and kisses her children. The nosy mother-in-law is played by Brigitte Mira, looking really ugly after making me cry in Fear Eats the Soul, made the previous year. I would say that that character is a cliché if I didn't know so many people exactly like her! Irm Herrmann plays the sister-in-law, and Adrian Hoven plays a pharmacist with whom Carstensen begins an affair after her prescription for Valium runs out. These two characters have the kind of hidden depth that make the film so good. The same can be said about Kurt Raab and Ingrid Caven, both playing other people with psychological problems, the former appearing once in a while in the streets and staring knowingly at Carstensen, the latter Carstensen's roommate at an asylum in which she undergoes some treatment; when Carstensen is undergoing sleep therapy, Caven desperately wants to converse with her, but when she is awake the woman becomes catatonic. Peer Raben's music is excellent, as always, and Fassbinder uses the music of Leonard Cohen wonderfully (as he also did in his more famous 1975 film, Fox and His Friends). 9/10.