It’s very easy nowadays, with the constant barrage of Hollywood blockbusters thrust into our faces, to forget cinema of yesteryear and its impact on the way we live our lives. Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a director who explored a range of themes that have paved the way for some of the freedoms we still struggle with today: race, gender, freedom of expression, sexuality and class.
He’s a German director, he was pretty mental and like many talented mavericks, died of an overdose. Following are our fave 5 fassbinder films with some highlights to whet your appetite. Go get a box set noy!
1. Katzelmacher
It’s a bunch of young people living in a council estate. It’s beautiful to watch, applies today and makes you want to hang around smoking fags at the bottom of a high rise in a sharp suit/babydoll dress.
2. The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Anorexic lesbian fashion designer with a taste for nylon wigs living with her unspeaking masochist boss-eyed assistant. I’m not sure if I need to say more…except…she’s my thinspiration.
3. Martha
Same actress as Petra von Kant playing a strange, sheltered virgin who is proposed to by a sadist while puking at the fairground.
4. The American Soldier
Gay junkie gypsies, a German Javier Bardem circa No Country For Old Men, a woman stabbing herself to death and some serious drunk driving. Sounds like my weekend. The following clip is the lead, an alcoholic contract killer, dying while his gay brother dry humps him.
5. Rio das Mortes
Idealistic young bloke in green velvet trousers wants to escape his mundane life in Germany and travel to South America to find treasure. It’s beautifully simple and makes you want to go on your own expedition, a bit like Spiceworld really.
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