Martha |
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“It’s not music. It’s SLIIIME!”
-Helmut
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Director Starring |
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Fassbinder’s political horror-comedy is one of his very best films I’ve seen yet, hitting all the right notes in a bizarre melding of genres, resulting in a deliciously over-the-top, sinister film. The truly terrifying is mitigated by — and at the same time, heightened by — the comic absurdity of the situation: Bohm’s sadist is dangerous and deranged, but I couldn’t help but bust out laughing when his anger is invoked by Martha’s taste in popular music (”It’s SLIIIIME!!!”) and his sexual urge aroused by killing her cat. Margit Carstensen (a personal favorite) is sublime as the naive, indulgent heretofore spinster librarian whose personality is so deeply buried first under her controlling parents, then under her monstrous husband, that she is filmed in abstraction for most of her screen time, through mirrors or over her shoulder. Masterful film from Fassbinder, as deeply depressing and wickedly entertaining as I’ve come to expect him to be.
(If this is meant to be a cautionary tale at all, then I will remain a spinster librarian, thank you very much!)
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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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