Lola, une femme allemande

West Germany, late 1950s: Lola (Barbara Sukowa) is a singing prostitute working in a brothel that the town's bigwigs, even the mayor, like to frequent. To the annoyance of the corrupt construction entrepreneurs, especially a crass man named Schukert (Mario Adorf), the town's new building commissioner von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is an honest and idealistic man who tries to clean up the building license politics from bribery and cheating. One day Lola approaches von Bohm, piques his interest and eventually leads him to dream of marriage with her – but how will he react when Lola's true profession is eventually revealed?

Lola was my first Fassbinder film, so I don't know how it compares to his other works or the other two films in the BRD trilogy, but I can say that I was impressed by the unique style. Almost all of the scenes are lit with very bright and coloured lights, frequently painting the characters in different colours even when in the same frame. The music is also light in tone, often highly comedic, making the serious-sounding tale of corruption appear as silly and petty games of fooling each other. Various characters also provide plenty of over-the-top comedy; particularly Schukert whose dancing in the brothel with the singing Lola on his shoulders provides perhaps the most outrageous scene in the whole film. Nevertheless, it's not all comedy, as the characters' serious emotional development is also examined. Besides von Bohm's realization of the true nature of things, Lola's confusion about what to do with the men surrounding her is also absorbing to see.

All in all, Fassbinder's exaggerated and satirical approach to Germany's era of post-war rebuilding is thoroughly entertaining thanks to the visual style and the lovely music. The actors, from the obnoxious Mario Adorf to the enigmatic Barbara Sukowa, do a good job too, and I consider the film a both delightful and thought-provoking piece of cinema that has definitely got me interested in seeing more of the director's work.

Von Bohm is from East-Prussia, his two "weaknesses" are "East-Prussian human beings and West-Frisian tea", he tells to Lola's mother who works as his house-keeper after he has been elected as the new head of the construction department by the city of Coburg. Coburg - as any German city in the time of the "Wirtschaftswunder" - is a place "where people have an outer and an inner life, and both have nothing to do with one another". Although Von Bohm agrees, he has not a ghost of an idea that the elegant and beautiful young lady who gets his hand-kiss is in her "inner" life the attraction of the local bordello where the "crows" (major, police president, politicians, heads of the governmental departments) and the "vulture" (Schuckert) reunite every evening while their wives are knitting at home or are already asleep.

It is amazing what Fassbinder made out of the Heinrich Mann-Von Sternberg drama "Professor Unrat" or "The Blue Angel", respectively. Fassbinder's Lola is not a man-murdering and at last unreachable "beauty" like the (not so beautiful) Marlene Dietrich, but a girl who has to nourish her little daughter and still has the hope for a better live. She is "open" for everybody and does not flirt with the distance. In the opposite: On the stage she goes from hand to hand and is something like a collective propriety of the "Creme De La Creme" of the little city. (The figure of Esslin - whose name is close to Enslin -, who quotes Bakunin in Lola's Boudoir, is probably the rest that remained from the original protagonist character of Professor Unrat.) Therefore, Fassbinder's Lola is not about the decrease of a society member by entering the "wrong" society, but about her way to become a part of her society and Von Bohm's desire to possess his beloved "object". This is managed in an almost fairy-tale-like style, typically (and ironically) for the Germany of the Adenauer-era, so that in the end everybody looks happy, since everybody got what he wanted: Lola says to Mrs. Schuckert: "Now I belong to you". Schuckert earns his 3 millions of D-Marks from the "Lindenhof", the Mayor will be reelected, and Von Bohm gets Lola. Then, Lola's little daughter asks him: "Are you happy now?". Von Bohm answers a bit hesitatingly by "Yes". Unlike Professor Unrat, he does not pay with his life for his love, but probably with his soul.

This looks absolutely wonderful throughout with astonishingly colourful lighting and much use of red and blue. The drawback is that with all the scenes similarly lit with bright colours a certain level of artifice is created. This is fantastic for the most effective night club scenes but becomes rather distracting elsewhere when we are being asked to take seriously the Blue Angel inspired antics of the well meaning older man and the flighty young dancer. It also distracts somewhat from the financial shenanigans. Overall, however, we get the drift and Fassbinder is once more trying to bring some awareness to a German population in denial, that they did not only loose the war but their very identity in the aftermath with all the divisions brought upon the nation by Russia and the West. Barbara Sukowa stars as the Dietrich type figure and very well she does too as she flirts with the corrupt property developer and the supposed socialist leaning reforming inspector. Awash with the benefits of the 'economic miracle' much helped by the funds plowed in for the rebuild, her actions ensure that the old man gets what he wants, the developer similarly and she sails off into the sunset, immorality levels safely restored.

Part of his loose BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Trilogy - portraits of women in German society after the war - this late Fassbinder is based on the same story behind Sternberg's Blue Angel. Lola is a nightclub singer and prostitute, personal whore of larger-than-life property developer Schukert, at a red-light establishment favoured by the mayor and his cronies. Into this cosy, corrupt world comes a new Building Commissioner, Von Bohm – a meticulous character that the others cannot draw into their circle. With plenty of building going on in Germany during the 50s, Von Bohm is an important official whom the mayor must somehow get around in order to continue bending the rules on lucrative construction deals. By coincidence, Von Bohm meets and falls in love with Lola, unaware that she is a prostitute. When he finds out, he is devastated, but finally, by way of pragmatism, a moral compromise is reached – boy, are they compromised - and the film comes to rest on a somewhat absurd moral sandbank.

None of the characters are likable – they are all seedy local politicians, after all, but they slowly grow on us. Schukert, in particular takes some getting used to. Fassbinder takes delight in showing us that everyone is corrupt – even apparently incorruptible people. Everyone has a weakness, which is their price. Both money and desire corrupts and debases – it's inevitable - you might as well be practical about it, take pity on yourself and embrace it. In particular, corruption is the price of having eroticism in the world – and that's something we can't do without.

As the film goes along, the darkish tone gives way to levity once you realise that nobody is really going to get hurt. There are some genuinely pensive and romantic moments as well as some fairly gently humour - Von Bohm's neurotic secretary is quite funny. Very little is convincing though - particularly the Von Bohm's infatuation (he seems a little too old, and a little too naive) – and the outcome is even less so. There's very little reliable sociology going on here. Women are viewed as chattels and Lola herself is not really given an adequate personality – nor was Barbara Sukowa noteworthy in the part.

It's worth watching if only for it's striking visual design. The film is lit throughout in lurid primary colours – even outside in broad daylight faces are bathed in coloured light. Perhaps these colours spread outwardly from the nightclub's red light, diffracting through the ordinary world into rainbow hues. It is sometimes intrusive, but mainly effective and attractive.

Fassbinder has extracted one aspect of social behaviour and amplified it to absurdity here. This is not the way the world is, but is perhaps the way he would like it to be: fallible and corrupt, but erotic and benign.

It's 10 years after the war in West Germany. Lola (Barbara Sukowa) is a lounge singer/prostitute at a bordello run by corrupt builder Schuckert, the father of her daughter. Herr von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is a new righteous building commissioner and Schuckert needs to add three floors to his building. Esslin works under von Bohm and is the corrupt mayor's man. Lola's mother is von Bohm's landlady. Lola seduces von Bohm as proper lady with her real name Marie-Louise. When Esslin brings him to the bordello, his incorruptibility is tested.

Barbara Sukowa is terrific as the brassy broad reminiscent of the old classic goddesses like Marlene Dietrich. Armin Mueller-Stahl is always Armin. There are other great performances. This is a morality fable. It has a slightly surreal melodramatic feel. It's all very intriguing.