The gorgeous Hanna Schygulla as a woman whose husband has to go to the WWII Russian front after 36 hours of marriage, keeps faith with him (as he takes the rap for a murder she commits), and accidentally blows up the (exquisite) house she has bought that he comes home to, theirselves included.
It's all very well to discuss how this movie is an allegory of the German economic recovery after WWII, but the point is that that's not the half of it. It's a film about love, loyalty, and feminism, before feminism was a word understood by most of the planet.
It's also a movie that depicts the reality of post-WWII Germany in a way that you won't see anywhere else - "Nazi" as a term of abuse in 1945 Germany, the barter system as it existed and no doubt will again, women walking around with 'do you know this man?' cards on their backs.
It's a story about a woman doing what she's got to do, not a documentary. But it's authentic, as Fassbinder never failed to be.
It's all very well to discuss how this movie is an allegory of the German economic recovery after WWII, but the point is that that's not the half of it. It's a film about love, loyalty, and feminism, before feminism was a word understood by most of the planet.
It's also a movie that depicts the reality of post-WWII Germany in a way that you won't see anywhere else - "Nazi" as a term of abuse in 1945 Germany, the barter system as it existed and no doubt will again, women walking around with 'do you know this man?' cards on their backs.
It's a story about a woman doing what she's got to do, not a documentary. But it's authentic, as Fassbinder never failed to be.