Angst vor der Angst |
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“Alcohol is what I need. Alcohol and nothing more.”
-Margot
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Director Starring |
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Another fucking masterpiece from Fassbinder!
I think I expected something a bit Hitchcockian. What this is instead is profound existential angst. Blame the translation. “Fear” doesn’t come close to the concept.
Margot is not crazy. She is acutely alive. Existence is absurd; selfhood is unmanageably disconcerting. Margot looks in the mirror, attempts simple declarative sentences beginning with “I,” and begins to lose her grip. It is too much to bear to feel, acutely, the absurdity of existence. She attempts to numb it with sex, alcohol, Valium, Leonard Cohen… What she is looking for is meaning, a real connection. This is denied to her, and eventually she is left completely “calm” by a cocktail of prescribed drugs.
Fassbinder, you’ve killed me again! Oh how I love you for it…
So many interesting things going on in this film. As in Cassavetes’ Woman Under the Influence, Margot’s “mental illness” is not fully diagnosed or explicitly directed, but he effectively shows the direct effect from her point of view. Very cool — and, importantly, subtle — camera work putting the viewer in her head; tons of interesting stuff going on with themes of voyeurism (many observers take in the action from the window in their flat; at one point, Fass even seems to suggest Margot watching herself from this vantage point) and triangulated gazes. I want to write a term paper. Boy, do I…
I’m not sure whether I prefer this or Martha, but along with Petra these are as strong a top three as I have from any director. I worship him. I really do.
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[...] 1982 Veronika Voss 1981 Lola 1979 The Marriage of Maria Braun 1978 Despair 1978 In a Year of 13 Moons 1976 Satan’s Brew 1975 Angst vor der Angst 1975 Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven 1974 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Effi Briest 1974 Martha 1972 The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant 1972 The Merchant of Four Seasons 1971 Beware of a Holy Whore 1971 Rio Das Mortes 1971 Whity 1970 Gods of the Plague 1969 Lover is Colder Than Death [...]
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