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.

As I was watching the film, I did not think much of it in the beginning but as the film progressed, I was totally amazed. Fassbinder does so much with the camera and sound. It is the kind of film which can start touching your own feelings. You get absorbed into the film so much that when you cant hear the sound in one scene you start to panic. That is the essence of great cinema.

this is a lesser known work in Fassbinder's ouevre, but it is really worth seeing. Margot, a housewife pregnant with her second child begins to feel a strange fear that she can't explain. Her vision becomes blurry and she begins to fear that she is going insane. She seeks relief in valium, cognac, and has a brief affair with the local pharmacist. It is a well shot film, the actress playing Margot has a kind of Karen Carpenter creepy frailty. There are slightly campy and melodramatic elements, but the vision of the nightmare of depression and modern life is really powerful.

Margit Carstensen plays the lead, Margot, a woman who is what the early 20th century doctors would have used as a dictionary definition of "hysterical". Indeed, at one point early in the film (albeit referring to her soon-to-be baby she'll give birth to) she says that she's hysterical, in a manner that is true but with the voice of something else. Throughout Fear of Fear her character fluctuates from various self-inflicted ailments, and the simple macho "Guy" thing would be to just slap her and get on with the day. But that's not at all the way of Margot's husband, Kurt, would ever operate. In fact he is just what every woman would want in a man, husband, father, all of the above: caring, considerate, supportive, but at the same time studying for some math exam and not able to give undivided attention to her. The spiral downward continues for her with Valium, booze, an on-off bond with her five year old daughter, and worst of all her nosy mother and sister in laws living one floor up.

This is top-shelf Fassbinder. It's somewhat cheap with its budget because it is a TV movie that, frankly, is obscure due in some small part to the director probably making it so quickly he didn't want to bother going through all the motions of releasing it in theaters. But a full-length movie it is, and a superb one, a scorching-hot melodrama that finds the fragility of this character, the truth and liabilities with this volatile, beautiful force, but never going too far into horrid melodrama. Anyone else could make a respectable Saturday afternoon Lifetime movie (all of the ingredients essentially are there). Fassbinder isn't into just telling a story of a kind of neglected woman who can't control her mind. It's also an important message put forward, first off, about the possible problems psychologically for a woman to give birth (post-partem depression, which is very real), and that it's not just hysterics or fodder for gossip.

There's a lot of depth here, and not just in stuff like the recurring presence of the character Bauer, a mysterious guy who keeps standing outside of the apartment building, seeing Margot going to the doctor's office, leering, creepy in his own way but nearly ghost-like. That is the kind of touch that keeps things just so strange enough that it doesn't become clichéd, and around something as symbolic as the character Bauer he piles up the drama: the mother (Brigitte Mira in a perfect two-dimensional turn) and the sister of Kurt as the watchdogs of the whole unraveling, the doctor who has an affair with the wayward Margot, the total love for her child that gets twisted in the lack of logic and restraint. And finally Margot herself, played by Carstensen like it should be the performance of her career- which just for television is truly remarkable- achieving a slight Catherine Deneuve quality only, frankly, deeper in places to draw from emotionally.

Newcoming fans of the director's obscenely big body of work (like myself) would do well to check out this little-known treat of a 'woman under the influence' drama that rises way above most of its conventions or, if not always, enough to keep things fascinating.

Margot, is a middle class German housewife, who is having some problems. For one she's seeing things, the camera ripples as if under water, whenever she experiences one these fits. Or else it zooms in dramatically, as if her focus is being thrown off completely. Is she just depressed, hysterical, schizophrenic, suffering an anxiety disorder, different doctors tell her different things.

Her husband is largely uninterested he's studying for some Math exam, in their apartment beneath his mothers and sisters. Needless to say Mom and big sis, are always sticking their head in with helpfull hints on how she can be a better, mother, wife, etc. One doctor wants to have an affair, out of desperation she does, when she has sex she stops thinking "then the fear doesn't come". That only works, til she wants more, than he's willing to give, then its a booze and pills cocktail, to numb the days away. The only person who asks her to talk is a man from across the street who she tells her daughter is "sick in the head", and avoids at all costs, hes a walking mirror of her, but one that at least reaches out. Its she who rebuffs him, she may be hallucinating, but she's not one of "those people".

Like other drama's about housewives on the edge, Cassavettes actors showcase, "A Woman Under The Influence", or Todd Haynes germaphobic "Safe", this is gripping and sad film. The big difference is Fassbinder, adds a lot of humor, especially in the music, which is almost timed for comedy at points.

Its a disorientating experience, and maybe flat to some, but I understood Margot's plight, which wasn't just limited to her station as a housewife, her love or lack of love, or her substance abuse, perhaps its something she will never be rid off. Some people just have to like this, under a wavy ripply world, of constant uncertainty and fear from nowhere. Fassbinder, puts us in her shoes, forcing us into empathy without a clear solution. Someone commented its like the best Lifetime, movie ever. I disagree mostly, but wouldn't rule it out entirely. When the story is weak, the film itself picks up, lingering or changing scenes, cutting of sentences, to heighten the emotional tension, and for the most part it works