Lola

1981 movie, BRD3, from Fassbinder.
This movie is bright, colourful, gaudy, sickening lurid greens and reds that pour out of the screen, through the senses, in shaded areas. His mixes with the thematic gaudiness, but again more underneath that. A kind of grounding of artifice, entire appearance that suggests depths visible, but not communicable. It is our sense that prove inadequate, not the colour.
This is the most obviously related to old hollywood, particularly Sternberg's 'Blue Angel', and again plays with the themes.
The central characters are well played, fascinating. There is at time something Bunuel esque about their internal lives expressed through a kind of closed off, flatness, which is the product of their own over-reactions.
Fassbinder is a master of strong individual scenes, often with the addition of a central character adding an excess that determines the whole. Thus quite straightforward narratives are given an extra element, even as Fassbinder has quite a mainstream narrative flow.
This is the continuation of themes, dialectics of money represented through the stages that in this film in particular are all shown, chronologically.
Fassbinder has his usual tracking shots, mixtures of mid and wider with a few close ups, for a slightly flat style that every now and again finds us at an interesting view.
We have enjoyed Fassbinder's films. They haven't completely thrown our lives into chaos with their brilliance, being formally quite simple and fast, but there are layers and great cinema references that really let meanings conjeal. We look forward to seeing more of his (large) oeuvre.