Fassbinder marriage doesn’t work period prestige costume drama. Effi Briest (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is the life story of this character played by Schygulla that follows her from getting married off to INSTETTEN (Wofgang Schenck) when she’s 17 through something like 8 years later to her deathbed. She has an affair with this dude MAJOR CRAMPUS (Ulli Lommel) about a year into her marriage and hides it. So the whole entire long ass movie is a morality piece that’s always and only ever about this what comes to be looked at as minor indiscretion.
At first when bon vivant Crampus moves in to exploit Instetten the privy counselor’s traveling for work leaving his home unprotected you think what a piece of shit. And kind of hate the Effi character for cheating on her husband. But in Effi Briest you have to look at it from the other side. Instetten tells his new bride that there’s the ghost of a Chinese man who used to work at the plantation at good old Kessin, taking advantage of Effi having mentioned that she hears noises upstairs like footsteps when she’s trying to go to sleep at night. Instetten uses fear to control Effi. He tells her as long as she isn’t fucking anyone else behind his back she doesn’t have to worry about the ghost doing her harm. Good one.
I’ve kept pointing out the symbolism in Fassbinder’s films linking those desperately chasing their desires chasing love like gamblers, but Instetten comes right out and says that’s what Crampus is doing. Yet Effi in some ways still acts like a child. And from the beginning she enters into her new married life in fear. Like a child approaches life, a mix of fear and curiosity. She seems an easy mark for the hustler. A really cool scene occurs when the married couple have trouble with their carriage and Maj. Crampus shows up to give Effi a ride home. It becomes so gothic. It’s night time in the dead of night in a forest and when Effi hops in she tells a story about an old widow desperate to avoid enemy detection praying for protection and God’s wall, a snow covering her home to safely hide her. We can hear owls while she’s telling the tale, but also we see Instetten with the broken down wagon and there’s this shot where it freeze frames on him along with Effi reciting God’s Wall. Like he’s the ghost.
One other thing that complicates our judgement of who’s right or wrong is a scene between Effi and her servant ROSWITHA. So Effi way earlier sees this registrar widow funeral and remembers the woman’s servant was this big “simple looking” woman that she opportunistically scoops up for her own. Roswitha’s Catholic and it seems everybody likes her and is glad Emmi hires her. But way later Effi sees Roswitha flirting with KRUSE the groom-groundskeeper dude (who’s married to this woman who works in the kitchen and has a pet black hen) she gives her so much shit. Too much. As in how can Effi be such a hypocrite?
Like I said this thing is Effi’s life story. It’s long. But it really is mostly moral ramifications of her hooking up with Crampus. That and what society forces everyone to do here. A big Fassbinder theme. The tragedy is when Instetten gets a promotion along with a required move to Berlin, Effi is glad to now have a convenient reason to break it off with Crampus. Plus she really wasn’t that into him anyway. But when Instetten seven years later finds their love letters hidden in a sewing machine he’s gotta kill that dude.
The conversation between Instetten and WÜLLERSDORF (Karlheinz Böhm) though is truly sublime best part of the film. Could you stay with a woman who cheated on you because you love her is turned into this in depth debate between these two guys and the way they present it and ultimately confront their conclusion is thrilling, but more so the cinematic flourish wherein before they even get to the end there are shots of the carriage traveling to the duel dissolving in and out. This is the argument in effect that society makes us follow its laws. And it’s pretty compelling fun.
The last part of Effi Briest is this long her losing everything trying to reconcile the question she asks herself of is she entirely to blame or not? It turns into her deathbed last thing in her life kind of scene. And my problem leading up to this for one is her parents disown her. They say because of their religious beliefs and because society will ignore them forevermore if they take Effi in then she’s on her own. But some old doctor tells the parents it’s better if Effi came to stay with them and all of a sudden they’re like okay cool. In terms of dramatic plotting that’s just too easy. Not motivated properly. And I didn’t expect Fassbinder to make that kind of sweet concession to the dying girl but whatever.
In the end it’s not about if you think Effi is to blame for all that happened or not. It’s more about seeing society’s effect on everyone in this narrative from the moment this old lawyer who the little girl remembers from visiting her grandfather’s house and asking her mother out long ago. And seeing how marriage doesn’t work. But this time there’s something fond about the way the whole story is told. A willful thoughtful desire to reconcile it all.
And I feel for Effi saying Instetten doesn’t know true love. But I also detest that she and Crampus cheated and am kinda with the whole Instetten winning the duel part. But even he admits he ruined his whole life in doing so. The truth I find in it all is it’s not our place to try to make sense of what goes on between someone else’s marriage. Someone else’s life. We do what we think is best at the time.
I’ve kept pointing out the symbolism in Fassbinder’s films linking those desperately chasing their desires chasing love like gamblers, but Instetten comes right out and says that’s what Crampus is doing. Yet Effi in some ways still acts like a child. And from the beginning she enters into her new married life in fear. Like a child approaches life, a mix of fear and curiosity. She seems an easy mark for the hustler. A really cool scene occurs when the married couple have trouble with their carriage and Maj. Crampus shows up to give Effi a ride home. It becomes so gothic. It’s night time in the dead of night in a forest and when Effi hops in she tells a story about an old widow desperate to avoid enemy detection praying for protection and God’s wall, a snow covering her home to safely hide her. We can hear owls while she’s telling the tale, but also we see Instetten with the broken down wagon and there’s this shot where it freeze frames on him along with Effi reciting God’s Wall. Like he’s the ghost.
One other thing that complicates our judgement of who’s right or wrong is a scene between Effi and her servant ROSWITHA. So Effi way earlier sees this registrar widow funeral and remembers the woman’s servant was this big “simple looking” woman that she opportunistically scoops up for her own. Roswitha’s Catholic and it seems everybody likes her and is glad Emmi hires her. But way later Effi sees Roswitha flirting with KRUSE the groom-groundskeeper dude (who’s married to this woman who works in the kitchen and has a pet black hen) she gives her so much shit. Too much. As in how can Effi be such a hypocrite?
Like I said this thing is Effi’s life story. It’s long. But it really is mostly moral ramifications of her hooking up with Crampus. That and what society forces everyone to do here. A big Fassbinder theme. The tragedy is when Instetten gets a promotion along with a required move to Berlin, Effi is glad to now have a convenient reason to break it off with Crampus. Plus she really wasn’t that into him anyway. But when Instetten seven years later finds their love letters hidden in a sewing machine he’s gotta kill that dude.
The conversation between Instetten and WÜLLERSDORF (Karlheinz Böhm) though is truly sublime best part of the film. Could you stay with a woman who cheated on you because you love her is turned into this in depth debate between these two guys and the way they present it and ultimately confront their conclusion is thrilling, but more so the cinematic flourish wherein before they even get to the end there are shots of the carriage traveling to the duel dissolving in and out. This is the argument in effect that society makes us follow its laws. And it’s pretty compelling fun.
The last part of Effi Briest is this long her losing everything trying to reconcile the question she asks herself of is she entirely to blame or not? It turns into her deathbed last thing in her life kind of scene. And my problem leading up to this for one is her parents disown her. They say because of their religious beliefs and because society will ignore them forevermore if they take Effi in then she’s on her own. But some old doctor tells the parents it’s better if Effi came to stay with them and all of a sudden they’re like okay cool. In terms of dramatic plotting that’s just too easy. Not motivated properly. And I didn’t expect Fassbinder to make that kind of sweet concession to the dying girl but whatever.
In the end it’s not about if you think Effi is to blame for all that happened or not. It’s more about seeing society’s effect on everyone in this narrative from the moment this old lawyer who the little girl remembers from visiting her grandfather’s house and asking her mother out long ago. And seeing how marriage doesn’t work. But this time there’s something fond about the way the whole story is told. A willful thoughtful desire to reconcile it all.
And I feel for Effi saying Instetten doesn’t know true love. But I also detest that she and Crampus cheated and am kinda with the whole Instetten winning the duel part. But even he admits he ruined his whole life in doing so. The truth I find in it all is it’s not our place to try to make sense of what goes on between someone else’s marriage. Someone else’s life. We do what we think is best at the time.
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