Never really cared for The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder). Sure it’s the long awaited look you’d expect once Fassbinder made it to the big time. Lavish eleagantly realized production value bombed out postwar Berlin rubble. Period romance? Don’t listen to me I’m biased. I crave the Fassbinder anguished longing miserable disillusionment trajectory this film sorely lacks. Neither the plot specifically nor the characterizations work for me.
The film opens so so. The subjective POV (yes I realize that term is redundant) handheld roaming through the massive crowd exterior trainyard scene of Maria looking for her missing husband is great. Aforementioned rubble. The solider tossing a loosie dogpile for it superb. Blackmarket resourcefulness. GI hookup out of necessity convenience. When Hermann gets out is when the story has legs.
But no. Hermann is cold and distant. There’s nothing there. And it works but. After he goes to prison for his (justified) crime of passion you think we’d resent Maria just a little. But no. Full on feminist (not that there’s anything wrong with that) epic follows Maria for the rest of the running time as an obnoxiously Mary Sue who just happens to quickly pick up perfect English from an American soldier she’s had sex with a few times; finds a job with some CEO where she’s all of a sudden completely competent translator distinguished in the finest of nuances in the language; and a shrewd business-political negotiator formidable girlboss who becomes rich and all powerful. She’s also a perfect friend/daughter/wife.
See the thing is this is obviously a tradrole gender reversal. Everything I just mentioned if Maria were a man no one would think twice about. But the dynamic between the plot involving Maria and Hernann’s marriage always comes off as a cold and stubborn stalemate that never resolves itself. And okay I get that’s probably the point. It’s supposed to be that way because I think they even say it somewhere the postwar years in West Germany “were no time for feelings.” I think Maria says it while Hermann’s in prison “It’s not a good time for feelings.”
By the end I almost enjoy Maria’s arch from loyal wife to cruel little tyrant mogul. When that receptionist tries to make a lunch date with Oswald and Maria makes her cry then laughs at her is too harsh. And I almost think I’m gonna feel bad for her. But you know the ending. Not that in a million years would I expect anyone to take my idea of the ending seriously but I think leaving that gas burner on is the movie gods’ revenge on us having to have been expected to buy the Senkenberg reading of Oswald's will ending.
But no. Hermann is cold and distant. There’s nothing there. And it works but. After he goes to prison for his (justified) crime of passion you think we’d resent Maria just a little. But no. Full on feminist (not that there’s anything wrong with that) epic follows Maria for the rest of the running time as an obnoxiously Mary Sue who just happens to quickly pick up perfect English from an American soldier she’s had sex with a few times; finds a job with some CEO where she’s all of a sudden completely competent translator distinguished in the finest of nuances in the language; and a shrewd business-political negotiator formidable girlboss who becomes rich and all powerful. She’s also a perfect friend/daughter/wife.
See the thing is this is obviously a tradrole gender reversal. Everything I just mentioned if Maria were a man no one would think twice about. But the dynamic between the plot involving Maria and Hernann’s marriage always comes off as a cold and stubborn stalemate that never resolves itself. And okay I get that’s probably the point. It’s supposed to be that way because I think they even say it somewhere the postwar years in West Germany “were no time for feelings.” I think Maria says it while Hermann’s in prison “It’s not a good time for feelings.”
By the end I almost enjoy Maria’s arch from loyal wife to cruel little tyrant mogul. When that receptionist tries to make a lunch date with Oswald and Maria makes her cry then laughs at her is too harsh. And I almost think I’m gonna feel bad for her. But you know the ending. Not that in a million years would I expect anyone to take my idea of the ending seriously but I think leaving that gas burner on is the movie gods’ revenge on us having to have been expected to buy the Senkenberg reading of Oswald's will ending.
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