Well Deserved Praise

Highly Overrated But Still Good

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

I liked this movie. The cinematography was beautiful and it was very interesting to watch for someone (me) who is very interested in New German Cinema. The only problem is that it's unnecessarily long. I understand the point Fassbinder was trying to make and it came across perfectly fine. I just feel like he went into some much detail to make his point go across. Throughout the film, Maria becomes drastically different people. She's really a lot of things. It's obvious that she is confused about herself. The thing that gets me is that the movie is very meandering. It just goes on and on with something that doesn't have to be so long. It'd be fine if the characters were more likable (like in Pulp Fiction, a film that relies on it's characters) but with this film they really aren't supposed to be likable. Maybe, on a second watch of the film, the whole thing would feel like it passes by faster. But for now, I'd say it's a 7/10. I'd recommend it only if you are curious about the history of cinema or if you're crazy about Fassbender.

This is my first Fassbinder film and, as such, I was excited to sink my teeth into this. This was the second film I was assigned to view for my Foreign History of film course and I was initially enchanted by its charming humor and hyperbolic characters. As the film progressed, Maria's character became more and more reductive. She is depicted as hyperssexual and because of this her character is "cold," calloused, and only interested in being her thought-to-be-deceased husband's subservient little wife. Women are written so explicitly simpleminded and only concerned with having a husband to sport around post-war Germany (or right in the thick of it). They lack a substantial superobjective that is independent of the male characters' own objectives.Has some funny and memorable moments, great Maria Braun dialogue, but overall a bit of a mess in terms of sound editing (added for effect, but completely stripping away from particular scenes), writing, and pacing.

This first part of the BRD Trilogy has more passion and plot density than Lola, but less of the magic of Veronica Voss. The political musings have point to them: we see the shortages after the war, how the blackmarketers were able to control so much of the day-to-day life (delicious moment when Fassbinder, playing a grifter, tries to sell a complete set of Kleist to Schygulla, who remarks that burning books don't provide much warmth: she really wants firewood).There's some clumsiness in the first hour. The scene in Maria's room with the black soldier, interrupted by Hermann's appearance should go quicker. The train scene when Maria meets Karl Oswald falls flat when she insults the GI--I cringed, it was so bad. But as the story develops and the years go by, I was drawn more and more into this glossy, cold world.

This movie was, as Homer Simpson would have put it, "more boring than church." Maybe I don't understand it well enough, and I thought it started out pretty well, but after (START OF SPOILER) Hermann Braun is sent to jail and Maria starts working/sleeping with her boss it just started to drag, and I struggled to keep awake. Again, maybe it symbolizes something, but the explosion at the end seemed very forced and out of place. (END OF SPOILER). In the end, I fail to see why others think it's so great, as I found it extremely boring. By the way, I did not watch this movie by my own free will, as I was required to see it for a Film class.