Okay just kidding Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1969, Michael Fengler, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) isn’t technically mumblecore. Because while it resembles that genre in form, the content of mumblecore is usually a string of episodic small little ups and downs along the path of emotional growth among some young people finding themselves. Or something. Basically not far off from early Mike Leigh or kitchen sink realism.
But when you watch Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? You first wonder wait a minute why is this movie boring as fuck? And then you’re like wait a minute, this is Fassbinder (it’s actually not), why is the camera handheld and boring? Raking shots? No rigorous formal staging? Because this movie is a sick joke. It’s mumblecore as disguise for working class satire to show how boring buttoned-down respectable member of society life is. Torture.
The friends trying to tell jokes and none of them are funny. The obnoxious record store trip asking what’s the name of that song with such broad details as to be inconsequential—although the girls get it. Which is sad, like this is what life is about. The family visit with the in-laws where they can’t remember the name of the director or actor of the production of Othello they just attended; their only insightful observation that the overture was kinda loud. This movie is bleak. Depressing. And the only thing going for the married couple is HERR R. (Kurt Raab) might get a promotion with slightly more pay. Kill me now.
After the office party where Herr R. gets wasted and goes on rambling another of the boringest speeches ever heard, his wife tells him the older he gets, the stupider and fatter. There’s some character growth after all. He has a friend visit and when you see the coverage of the wife that’s when this movie is legit hilarious. And not to spoil anything, it’s in the freakin title, when Herr R. runs amok it’s his wife who has a friend over and the way Irm Hermann delivers that endless account of a ski trip is even more boring even funnier. There’s a special place in hell reserved for movies like this.
The friends trying to tell jokes and none of them are funny. The obnoxious record store trip asking what’s the name of that song with such broad details as to be inconsequential—although the girls get it. Which is sad, like this is what life is about. The family visit with the in-laws where they can’t remember the name of the director or actor of the production of Othello they just attended; their only insightful observation that the overture was kinda loud. This movie is bleak. Depressing. And the only thing going for the married couple is HERR R. (Kurt Raab) might get a promotion with slightly more pay. Kill me now.
After the office party where Herr R. gets wasted and goes on rambling another of the boringest speeches ever heard, his wife tells him the older he gets, the stupider and fatter. There’s some character growth after all. He has a friend visit and when you see the coverage of the wife that’s when this movie is legit hilarious. And not to spoil anything, it’s in the freakin title, when Herr R. runs amok it’s his wife who has a friend over and the way Irm Hermann delivers that endless account of a ski trip is even more boring even funnier. There’s a special place in hell reserved for movies like this.
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