1982, chronologically last but second entry in the BRD trilogy from Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The black and white shots are well concieved. They use sharp, sharp contrasts, giving a two-dimensional artificiality to the use of depth. It is the most accurate use of the old Hollywood aethetic we have seen. The film is over and under exposed; deep unconstrasted blacks and overexposed whites. Again, old hollywood.
The plot is similar, with the relation to hollywood meoldrama in the acting style, and directly referenced. It has all the best aspects of that tradition; the unreal formalism is taken out of its rather worrying ideological context, at the time, and made into a pure aesthetic here.
As in 'Maria Braun', we again have a fractured narrative, the centre of the movie dances from the reporter to Veronika and back again. It creates an uneasiness, but is needed so we have a entrire reworking, not just an update, of its precursors.
This film operates at the crossroads of noir, melodrama,and the European art film. It has the dark, idea of internal chaos, with the extreme acting of the glycoreine tears. Yet all through the Fassbinder perspective; an intelligent filmmaker who again offers up more layers. He is a filmmaker to be watched in conjunction with the history of cinema; his spin-offs are of the best kind.
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