Review | ‘Enfant Terrible’ stirs up trouble at Perth’s German Film Festival

Enfant Terrible | Dir: Oscar Röhler | ★ ★ ★ ★ 

When 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder stormed the stage of the ‘Antitheatre’ in Munich and seized the production in 1967, nobody suspected that this brazen nobody would become one of the most important post-war German filmmakers. Oskar Röhler’s biopic covers Fassbinder’s career and his turbulent life from this point in time, recreating the mood of the auteur’s films.

Fassbinder’s life was marked by enormous contradictions. Although openly homosexual, he was married twice; a school in Munich is named after him even though he left without graduating at the age of 16 after declaring his homosexuality and although he never completed any filmmaking or theatre studies, he harnessed both the mediums to great effect.

Oliver Masucci is brilliant as he becomes the creative sadist who lived life to the hilt and brought gay and lesbian films to the big screen that were quite pornographic. Honouring Fassbinder’s theatre background that comes through in his films, Röhler has created a smoke-filled film noire that is dark in look as well as content.

In his trademark leather jacket, Fassbinder often starred in his own films that he wrote, directed, edited and filmed as well as designing sets and composing music – all on an extremely low budget.

Fassbinder created 44 projects between 1966 and his death in 1982 at the age of 36 and one of his famous quotes is “Everyone must decide for himself whether it is better to have a brief but more intensely felt existence or to live a long and ordinary life”.

This enfant terrible of West Germany’s radical chic world was an undeniable genius even though his aggressive directing style wouldn’t be tolerated these days and his brutality towards his actors is sometimes difficult to watch.

Enfant Terrible screens as part of the German Film Festival which will run from 3 June until 20 June, screening at Luna Cinemas Leederville, Luna on SX and Palace Cinemas Raine Square.

Lezly Herbert


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