Despite his austere, bleak, we’re all doomed because of our desires worldview, in addition to a heightened cinematic formalism comprised of rigorous blocking of actors speaking their dialogue in an often wooden, detached hypnotic emo sulking stylization; take something like Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) here and you’ll find one of Fassbinder’s funniest comedies. And it’s amazing how well developed the characters are here.
The characters can broadly be lumped into two categories in this film: disillusioned opportunists, cocky from sexual experience, and innocent idealistic naïve virgins. The dual protagonists are ALMA the whore (Irm Hermann) and BERTA the virgin (Hanna Schygulla). The experienced characters have attained the wisdom that there’s no such thing as love. The idealistic characters only reason for living is the search for love.
The plot structure in this thing is truly exceptional. Classic mismatch. Alma gloats about how easy it is for her to use men, until she’s fed up because men only use her for sex, when that very minute she runs into FABIAN in the street. Fabian at this point has just been clicked by a group of drunk soldiers, his fitting comeuppance for being a little bitch virgin jealous of them because they get all the pussy (the explosions “detonate” making him lose his shit are code for orgasms). The mismatch is Fabian was arranged to be Berta’s suitor—because she’s the maid in his house and his father UNERTL buys him a brand new blue BMW as a reward contingent on his son having the balls to fuck their maid. So inevitably the whore and the spoiled brat wind up together, committing to each other instantly when they run into each other after his beatdown. In Fassbinder’s world it’s the perfect match. No love. “Where there’s security you can do without love.” Alma tells Fabian she’s willing to marry him for his money and he’s happy about it. This is better than real life, cinema showing the underlying truths that govern us.
Berta exists in a different movie—a saccharine fairy tale love story for young girls. She’s a maid in the home of a wicked tradmaster misogynist who is open about her being sexually earmarked for his kid is part of her job description. But Berta meets the man of her dreams, the soldier KARL (Harry Baer) at night in the moonlight on her favorite park bench there for just them. But Karl exists in a Fassbinder movie. He’s aloof from tons of sexual partners, bored, sullen, and doesn’t even act like he cares about Berta for any reason other than he wants to get laid. This film gets it right. In society the way the class system works is in the lower class hot chicks are attracted to dudes that treat them like shit. Through the entire film Karl tells Berta he doesn’t want her so he can get her. He knows it works. And cleverly the plot waits until the very last scene for them to finally succumb to their passions, the climax of the film being very anticlimactic with Berta losing her virginity along with the crushing brutal painful last line “Was that all?” as she yells crying on the ground having a tantrum, used up, seduced and abandoned.
The moral of Pioneers in Ingolstadt is there is no such thing as love. Alma accepts this fact and lives happily ever after with Fabian. Berta has the unshakable faith that Karl is her true love until he busts one and literally runs away from her—serious comedy. The tragic part is Karl warns her not to fall in love with him from the beginning. The film is telling us there’s no such thing as love. But I fall for it nevertheless. I can’t get enough of lovesick Berta and her pining away forlorn dreaming it’s gonna work out. In the small town of Ingolstadt where this film is set all anyone seems to think about is hooking up. It’s like a teenybopper love story movie. That’s what Fassbinder gives us and we get to enjoy it, even though the dagger is hidden inside this gorgeous dessert just waiting to tear our hearts out. It turns out you can still laugh even if your heart’s broken, maybe it’s even better conducive to do so.
When I was young and I watched a bunch of Fassbinder I’d began to become acquainted with his vast stock actors group, but watching these films again there’s one I never noticed. Dude I love Carla Aulaulu. She’s almost like a West German Bulle Ogier. In Pioneers in Ingolstadt the scenes with FRIEDA (Aulaulu) and Alma talking shit standout as some of the funniest moments. Frieda is a teen virgin who hates Alma because she’s a bitch, but also because she’s taking all the soldiers, but also because allegedly she’s making all the other girls look bad. There’s also some cringe scenes with the SGT taking advantage of Frieda that are so sad predator exploiting this lonely girl though.
And then there’s Inertl the asshole dad. The only character I undoubtedly loathe is Fabian. But his dad Inertl, though he’s a pompous mean grouch, I kind of identify with a lot of what he says. So I’m a monster, okay. Like that scene where the son tells him he’s selfish, and Inertl replies, “Everyone is selfish,” I love that line. I’ve said that line. And it’s funny to think about feminist ideology say advocating that a woman’s place isn’t to be some object, servant, docile maid, when Inertl treats Berta as precisely that—but she is the maid, that is her job. Why do I think this movie is so funny? Fassbinder might not believe in love as a viable possibility, but he sure gets it, and fills his films with characters who want nothing more. It works both ways, just like in life.
The plot structure in this thing is truly exceptional. Classic mismatch. Alma gloats about how easy it is for her to use men, until she’s fed up because men only use her for sex, when that very minute she runs into FABIAN in the street. Fabian at this point has just been clicked by a group of drunk soldiers, his fitting comeuppance for being a little bitch virgin jealous of them because they get all the pussy (the explosions “detonate” making him lose his shit are code for orgasms). The mismatch is Fabian was arranged to be Berta’s suitor—because she’s the maid in his house and his father UNERTL buys him a brand new blue BMW as a reward contingent on his son having the balls to fuck their maid. So inevitably the whore and the spoiled brat wind up together, committing to each other instantly when they run into each other after his beatdown. In Fassbinder’s world it’s the perfect match. No love. “Where there’s security you can do without love.” Alma tells Fabian she’s willing to marry him for his money and he’s happy about it. This is better than real life, cinema showing the underlying truths that govern us.
Berta exists in a different movie—a saccharine fairy tale love story for young girls. She’s a maid in the home of a wicked tradmaster misogynist who is open about her being sexually earmarked for his kid is part of her job description. But Berta meets the man of her dreams, the soldier KARL (Harry Baer) at night in the moonlight on her favorite park bench there for just them. But Karl exists in a Fassbinder movie. He’s aloof from tons of sexual partners, bored, sullen, and doesn’t even act like he cares about Berta for any reason other than he wants to get laid. This film gets it right. In society the way the class system works is in the lower class hot chicks are attracted to dudes that treat them like shit. Through the entire film Karl tells Berta he doesn’t want her so he can get her. He knows it works. And cleverly the plot waits until the very last scene for them to finally succumb to their passions, the climax of the film being very anticlimactic with Berta losing her virginity along with the crushing brutal painful last line “Was that all?” as she yells crying on the ground having a tantrum, used up, seduced and abandoned.
The moral of Pioneers in Ingolstadt is there is no such thing as love. Alma accepts this fact and lives happily ever after with Fabian. Berta has the unshakable faith that Karl is her true love until he busts one and literally runs away from her—serious comedy. The tragic part is Karl warns her not to fall in love with him from the beginning. The film is telling us there’s no such thing as love. But I fall for it nevertheless. I can’t get enough of lovesick Berta and her pining away forlorn dreaming it’s gonna work out. In the small town of Ingolstadt where this film is set all anyone seems to think about is hooking up. It’s like a teenybopper love story movie. That’s what Fassbinder gives us and we get to enjoy it, even though the dagger is hidden inside this gorgeous dessert just waiting to tear our hearts out. It turns out you can still laugh even if your heart’s broken, maybe it’s even better conducive to do so.
When I was young and I watched a bunch of Fassbinder I’d began to become acquainted with his vast stock actors group, but watching these films again there’s one I never noticed. Dude I love Carla Aulaulu. She’s almost like a West German Bulle Ogier. In Pioneers in Ingolstadt the scenes with FRIEDA (Aulaulu) and Alma talking shit standout as some of the funniest moments. Frieda is a teen virgin who hates Alma because she’s a bitch, but also because she’s taking all the soldiers, but also because allegedly she’s making all the other girls look bad. There’s also some cringe scenes with the SGT taking advantage of Frieda that are so sad predator exploiting this lonely girl though.
And then there’s Inertl the asshole dad. The only character I undoubtedly loathe is Fabian. But his dad Inertl, though he’s a pompous mean grouch, I kind of identify with a lot of what he says. So I’m a monster, okay. Like that scene where the son tells him he’s selfish, and Inertl replies, “Everyone is selfish,” I love that line. I’ve said that line. And it’s funny to think about feminist ideology say advocating that a woman’s place isn’t to be some object, servant, docile maid, when Inertl treats Berta as precisely that—but she is the maid, that is her job. Why do I think this movie is so funny? Fassbinder might not believe in love as a viable possibility, but he sure gets it, and fills his films with characters who want nothing more. It works both ways, just like in life.
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