I think it's a perfect crime that this epic of human behavior has been neglected by German audiences. Even here on IMDb the people commenting on it are from various parts all over the wold but not from Germany. This is mostly due to the fact that "Berlin Alexanderplatz" was aired only once in 1980, under not very becoming conditions (it was a very bad copy of the original 16mm print that was much too dark for once), and then quickly thrown on the garbage heap of television-history. In the US for instance, Berlin Alexanderplatz was shown in cinemas and the association of American film critics at the end of the 80ies placed Günther Lamprecht under the top three actors of it's time, just behind Robert de Niro and Ben Kingsley. Figure that. Still the Germans go on saying that the Americans are mere barbarians when it comes to art. Thanks to "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and the people responsible for the quite expensive restoration-process of the series we now have a DVD and can watch the somnambulic masterpiece in all of it's original glory. It's the spiraling downfall of one man in a big Leviathan of a city, hard to swallow for most who rely on the silver or small screen for escapist entertainment. I just wish that today for every "Lost", "24" or "Profiler/CSI"-series there would at least be one "Berlin Alexanderplatz".
20 Reviews
The passion according to Fassbinder
ribeirovaldeck28 October 2008
Alfred Doeblin's poignant novel must have impressed Fassbinder deeply. In an interview talking about his episodic masterpiece, Fassbinder announces, in a matter-of-fact manner, that writing the script was not difficult because he pretty much knew the book "by heart". And, indeed, we should take his words literally, considering the extent of the work and the cinematic achievement it represents. Berlin Alexanderplatz is not an easy film to watch; not because of some artistic imperfection. On the contrary, because it is a dense and tortuous, but honest, observation of the human condition, its contradictions and dark nature. Fassbinder approached this project with an open heart and a razor-sharp discipline. He knew what he wanted to recreate, and the world he conjured up captures our attention by tearing away any romanticized notion of reality. The story takes place in Berlin around the years of 1926 and 1928: Germany, at the brink of one of the darkest periods of human existence. A universe breathing betrayal at a cellular level. Murder, jealousy, perversity, hatred, maliciousness, innocence, fragility, fear, longing, guilt, embarrassment, lack of hope, evil, passion, lust, doubt, indecision, suffering, pain, sex, death, blood, insecurity, poverty, uncertainty, madness, hell, despair, surrender, shock, chaos, dirt, soul, faith, and a constant flow in a spectacle of the Shadow of the human Psyche and their intrinsic Divinity. The story is told in thirteen parts and an epilogue. It is a long cinematic experience. Mr. Fassbinder acts as a sort of Brechtian observer with a soft spot on his heart. The first part runs around 82 minutes. The next twelve which follow are about an hour-long each. The last is the epilogue that is 112 minutes of an odyssey into madness and surreal visions of the Unconscious. This last part plays like a roller-coaster ride through the past, the present and the future as we exchange empiric data in order to survive. It's a spiral descent into hell. Dante's inferno is revealed in every corner. The main character in this story is Franz Bieberkopf. He re-enters the world after a four-year sentence in the Prison of Tegel. His crime: killing his girlfriend in a fit of anger and despair. He is the anti-hero we make acquaintance with, Nietzsche's Superman in anguish. Our limitations and awe. In times of terror the arrows flow amply. Doeblin's complex narrative and Rainer's impeccable rendition outlive their creative minds. The parallels can be tracked into our times. We can only hope we have learned some lessons. The Weimar Republic was created after WWI in an attempt to establish Germany as a liberal democracy. It failed with the ascent of Adolf Hitler to power, and with the formation of the Nazi party. In 1933, the Third Reich takes over. Doeblin's narrative takes place in the last years of the Weimar Republic. Berlin Alexanderplatz is a phenomenal work of art that needs to be absorbed slowly. Fassbinder's work offers the viewer a similar involvement to reading the book. We get to spend more time with the characters and their settings. I watched one episode per day on average, but there were times I watched two on the same day. I also took breaks over the weekends, accommodating my schedule and my mood. This is undoubtedly a remarkable cinematic experience!
15 1/2 Hours of Brilliant Magnificence:
Galina_movie_fan2 May 2008
It took me over four months to finish watching Berlin Alexanderplatz that Criterion released on seven discs. As with the other two my favorite TV Series (Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" and "Scenes from the Marriage), Criterion deserves the highest praise for the quality of the set. I would receive a disc from Netflix, watch without stopping and then I would need a break - so intense and involving, and demanding it was. It has been said a lot about Werner Rainer Fassbinder's most opulent, magnificent, and controversial work based on the novel "Berlin Alexanderplatz" written by Alfred Döblin in 1929 that Fassbinder had known by heart and always wanted to adapt. In short, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a story of an ex-convict Franz Biberkopf and his attempts to lead a good honest life after he was released from the prison where he had spent four years for accidentally murdering his girlfriend in the fit of rage. Döblin's book is considered one of the most important German novels, which used the techniques similar to and is as influential as James Joyce's "Ulysses" and John Dos Passos' "Manhattan". As Joyce and Dos Passos, Doblin paints the portrait of the city that we could recognize and re-build in our imagination even if Berlin of the 1920s, the most modern city of its time does not exist anymore. Doblin also had shown how the city affects the life of a person and tears them apart.
There could be many reasons why Fassbinder felt so strongly about the novel and always dreamt about adapting it to the screen. He was certainly fascinated by the language of the book and he took it upon himself to narrate some of the most impressive pages as the comments to the action on the screen. Perhaps the young filmmaker was attracted to Doblin's non-judgmental approach in depicting marginality of criminal life, in accepting homosexuality and bisexuality as a part of life without neither glorifying nor demonizing them. The hero of Döblin'/Fassbinder's magnum opus is a deeply flawed man, a pimp, a thief, a murderer yet childishly naive and sympathetic who wants to start a new honest life (not pimping or joining the gang of thieves) but keeps forgetting that "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Fassbinder also could have seen the similarities in the political situations in Germany of 1970 and 1930.
I realize that 15 1/2 hours long "Berlin Alexanderplatz" can evoke very controversial emotions from the viewers but I believe it is impossible not to admit the brilliance and magnificence of the project and of the final product, which is without doubt a truly outstanding event in the history of the medium. Just to think that such enormous work had been finished in the course of 150 days, that Fassbinder took only three months to write the script, and how he'd envisioned the main players even before they could imagine they would participate in the project. It was incredibly interesting to watch the documentary about making BA. I found it symbolic that some parts of the film were shot using the earlier set decorations for Ingmar Bergman's "Serpent's Egg" which I like very much and don't agree that it was Bergman's mistake. I also see the influence Fellini might have had on Fassbinder - the scenes in the Red Light District could've came come from the Italian master's films who knew how to stage the "freak shows" and Barbara Sukowa's confession that she had looked at Fellini's "La Strada" to understand better the character of Mieze. Günter Lamprecht, Hanna Schygulla, and especially Gottfried John (who I believed had given the greatest performance in the film as one of the most mysterious villains ever on screen) all contributed their memories of the time they worked with Fassbinder on Berlin Alexanderplatz. I might have not perhaps "gotten" the whole complexity of the film and the novel it is based on but I feel greatness when I encounter it. Of all amazing 15+ hours, the final part, "My dream from the dream of Franz Biberkopf von Alfred Doeblin: An Epilogue" stands out even for Fassbinder. Rarely have I been so mesmerized and fascinated by what an artist's imagination is capable of as during the two final hours of the incredible filmmaking. The epilogue made me think that if ever a film director had lived who could have adapted to screen successfully "Divine Comedy", "The Book of Revelation", "Ulysses", and Goethe's Faust (the whole poem, not just a Margaret's affair) it was Rainer Werner Fassbinder. We lost our chance when he was gone and we would never see the likes of him again. Not often, I feel sorry that the film is over and I miss it as soon as I finish watching - it happened after the final scene of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" was over.
There could be many reasons why Fassbinder felt so strongly about the novel and always dreamt about adapting it to the screen. He was certainly fascinated by the language of the book and he took it upon himself to narrate some of the most impressive pages as the comments to the action on the screen. Perhaps the young filmmaker was attracted to Doblin's non-judgmental approach in depicting marginality of criminal life, in accepting homosexuality and bisexuality as a part of life without neither glorifying nor demonizing them. The hero of Döblin'/Fassbinder's magnum opus is a deeply flawed man, a pimp, a thief, a murderer yet childishly naive and sympathetic who wants to start a new honest life (not pimping or joining the gang of thieves) but keeps forgetting that "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Fassbinder also could have seen the similarities in the political situations in Germany of 1970 and 1930.
I realize that 15 1/2 hours long "Berlin Alexanderplatz" can evoke very controversial emotions from the viewers but I believe it is impossible not to admit the brilliance and magnificence of the project and of the final product, which is without doubt a truly outstanding event in the history of the medium. Just to think that such enormous work had been finished in the course of 150 days, that Fassbinder took only three months to write the script, and how he'd envisioned the main players even before they could imagine they would participate in the project. It was incredibly interesting to watch the documentary about making BA. I found it symbolic that some parts of the film were shot using the earlier set decorations for Ingmar Bergman's "Serpent's Egg" which I like very much and don't agree that it was Bergman's mistake. I also see the influence Fellini might have had on Fassbinder - the scenes in the Red Light District could've came come from the Italian master's films who knew how to stage the "freak shows" and Barbara Sukowa's confession that she had looked at Fellini's "La Strada" to understand better the character of Mieze. Günter Lamprecht, Hanna Schygulla, and especially Gottfried John (who I believed had given the greatest performance in the film as one of the most mysterious villains ever on screen) all contributed their memories of the time they worked with Fassbinder on Berlin Alexanderplatz. I might have not perhaps "gotten" the whole complexity of the film and the novel it is based on but I feel greatness when I encounter it. Of all amazing 15+ hours, the final part, "My dream from the dream of Franz Biberkopf von Alfred Doeblin: An Epilogue" stands out even for Fassbinder. Rarely have I been so mesmerized and fascinated by what an artist's imagination is capable of as during the two final hours of the incredible filmmaking. The epilogue made me think that if ever a film director had lived who could have adapted to screen successfully "Divine Comedy", "The Book of Revelation", "Ulysses", and Goethe's Faust (the whole poem, not just a Margaret's affair) it was Rainer Werner Fassbinder. We lost our chance when he was gone and we would never see the likes of him again. Not often, I feel sorry that the film is over and I miss it as soon as I finish watching - it happened after the final scene of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" was over.
Prelude to a Third Reich
swillsqueal18 March 2007
Very long (15 hours in all), very worth seeing. Based on Alfred Doeblin's novel of the same name, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is set in and around Berlin during the Weimar Republic era, the decade immediately preceding the establishment Hitler's Third Reich in 1933.
The workers of '20s Berlin are taking it on the chin. Mass unemployment reigns alongside the greed of the landlord and capitalist classes. People are reacting and acting in various ways to survive. As usual, some of the unemployed turn to crime; others to prostitution. Most of the film's cast will see the dawn of the "thousand year Reich" with their eyes only half way open.
But life must go on and it will go on and it does go on in Berlin during Weimar. It's an exciting time as well, a time when the puritanism of the countryside is being exchanged for a chance to live free and wild in a sleepless city chock full of cabarets and kniepe. Of course, the Nazis didn't like this and neither did their supporters, the conservative majorities of rural Germany.
As the film's director,R.W. Fassbinder put it,Doeblin's novel,BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, "offered a precise characterization of the twenties; for anyone who knows what came of all that, it's fairly easy to recognize the reasons that made the average German capable of embracing his National Socialism."
All this turmoil and potential for explosive change are seen by the audience of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" through the eyes of one guy, Franz Biberkopf. Walk, ride, rob, love, drink and despair with Franz Biberkopf. Best bring along a case or two of good lager while you're immersing yourself in the prelude to "Gotterdamerung".
The workers of '20s Berlin are taking it on the chin. Mass unemployment reigns alongside the greed of the landlord and capitalist classes. People are reacting and acting in various ways to survive. As usual, some of the unemployed turn to crime; others to prostitution. Most of the film's cast will see the dawn of the "thousand year Reich" with their eyes only half way open.
But life must go on and it will go on and it does go on in Berlin during Weimar. It's an exciting time as well, a time when the puritanism of the countryside is being exchanged for a chance to live free and wild in a sleepless city chock full of cabarets and kniepe. Of course, the Nazis didn't like this and neither did their supporters, the conservative majorities of rural Germany.
As the film's director,R.W. Fassbinder put it,Doeblin's novel,BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, "offered a precise characterization of the twenties; for anyone who knows what came of all that, it's fairly easy to recognize the reasons that made the average German capable of embracing his National Socialism."
All this turmoil and potential for explosive change are seen by the audience of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" through the eyes of one guy, Franz Biberkopf. Walk, ride, rob, love, drink and despair with Franz Biberkopf. Best bring along a case or two of good lager while you're immersing yourself in the prelude to "Gotterdamerung".
A Journey into the Reign of Subjectivity
hasosch21 January 2008
The most unique contribution of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Alfred Döblin's novel "Berlin Alexanderplatz. The story of Franz Biberkopf" (1929) was his interpretation of the relationship between Franz Biberkopf and Reinhold as a love story. Therefore, in Fassbinder's interpretation, Franz Biberkopf's accident is seen as self-mutilation. In Fassbinder's last movie, Querelle (1982), we will hear the confession: "To kiss a man is like the confrontation with one's own face in the mirror". As different as Döblin's "Alexanderplatz" and Genet's "Querelle" may be, the two novels are alike because they meet one another like an object and its mirror image: the first novel deals with the good-guy Franz Biberkopf who is ruined by his love to humankind, and the other novel with the immoral murderer Querelle by which those who love him, perish.
Like many of Fassbinder's movies, "Berlin Alexanderplatz", too, shows clear autobiographical traces. Fassbinder said about the three protagonists Franz, Reinhold and Mieze: "All three together supply my chance to survive". As Fassbinder pointed out in his article "The cities of the human and his soul", unlike Döblin in his original novel, Fassbinder is not so much interested in the discovery of the outer reality of Berlin, but concentrates on their inhabitants. "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a journey into the souls of different people under the conviction that the reign of subjectivity of the inner realities is much bigger than the reign of the objective reality outside. As a matter of fact (as has been pointed out by several commentators), "Berlin Alexanderplatz" with its almost 100 roles gave Fassbinder the possibility to let appear in his movie practically every person who had been crucial in his own life. That he split himself over three persons (Franz, Reinhold, Mieze) is very typical in Fassbinder's work in which many persons have their Alter Egos (e.g., "Despair", 1977). As Fassbinder had pointed out in an interview: "Despair is the only condition of life that I can accept". Consistently, the movie shows the systematic destruction of Franz, since "he is an anarchical figure in a crowd of social beings, and in the end, he perishes because of that". In fifteen and half an hour, we can analyze "the constellations, how a human spoils his life by a certain incapability which he developed by his upbringing" (Fassbinder). The movie shows the shaping of Franz Biberkopf to a mentally destroyed but therefore useful member of society. Every connoisseur of Fassbinder's work will be remembered to the final scene of "Fear of Fear" (1975) in which Margot, after having been "cured" in a psychiatric clinic, types addresses on envelopes like a trained monkey. When Karli brings her the information that their neighbor, the depressive Mr. Bauer, has killed himself, she hardly recognizes this fact anymore telling to Karli that she is feeling fine.
Like many of Fassbinder's movies, "Berlin Alexanderplatz", too, shows clear autobiographical traces. Fassbinder said about the three protagonists Franz, Reinhold and Mieze: "All three together supply my chance to survive". As Fassbinder pointed out in his article "The cities of the human and his soul", unlike Döblin in his original novel, Fassbinder is not so much interested in the discovery of the outer reality of Berlin, but concentrates on their inhabitants. "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a journey into the souls of different people under the conviction that the reign of subjectivity of the inner realities is much bigger than the reign of the objective reality outside. As a matter of fact (as has been pointed out by several commentators), "Berlin Alexanderplatz" with its almost 100 roles gave Fassbinder the possibility to let appear in his movie practically every person who had been crucial in his own life. That he split himself over three persons (Franz, Reinhold, Mieze) is very typical in Fassbinder's work in which many persons have their Alter Egos (e.g., "Despair", 1977). As Fassbinder had pointed out in an interview: "Despair is the only condition of life that I can accept". Consistently, the movie shows the systematic destruction of Franz, since "he is an anarchical figure in a crowd of social beings, and in the end, he perishes because of that". In fifteen and half an hour, we can analyze "the constellations, how a human spoils his life by a certain incapability which he developed by his upbringing" (Fassbinder). The movie shows the shaping of Franz Biberkopf to a mentally destroyed but therefore useful member of society. Every connoisseur of Fassbinder's work will be remembered to the final scene of "Fear of Fear" (1975) in which Margot, after having been "cured" in a psychiatric clinic, types addresses on envelopes like a trained monkey. When Karli brings her the information that their neighbor, the depressive Mr. Bauer, has killed himself, she hardly recognizes this fact anymore telling to Karli that she is feeling fine.
THE most monumental film of all time
doord7 September 1999
Berlin Alexanderplatz is by far the most ambitious film of all time. It has a very unusual feel to it as it slips between the real world and the mental state of Franz Biberkopf (particularly when he relives again and again the crime which landed him in prison). Of special interest to film addicts who have not seen the movie is the final 90 minutes which evidently was Fassbinder's own filmed fantasy of the entire plot, done with a background picture of Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights." A fabulous richly-detailed film, but some may not be able to get past the politics.
Modernist Masterpiece
randallhurlbut27 January 2008
This mega-movie is an expressionist, modernist masterpiece that combines the best of Wellesian cinema (expressionistic) with Godardian cinema (modernist). The (Godardian) voice-over snatches of random news items and medical health items (referenced in the prior 'review') are simply being faithful to Dobler's novel, which is a somewhat Germanic version of Joyce's Ulysses. But instead of the Joycian modernist take on the travels of Odysseus, Dobler's novel presented us with a modernist take on the Passion Play.
This film is not for simpletons. Just like a long, great novel there will be stretches that will bore you a bit and other stretches that are riveting and will break your heart.
Two major points:
1) Don't get too caught up with what some people see as a form of homo-eroticism between Franz Biberkopf and Reinhold. Although expressionistic, Fassbinder has presented the material with enough objectivity that different people will come away with different subtexts. Fassbinder has explained the film as a love story between Franz and Reinhold but Fassbinder was bisexual.
Franz is a grown up naive child. One could easily see Franz's 'curiosity' about Reinhold as a longing for an absent father. Eva, the one constant in Franz's life, could represent his longing for an absent/replacement mother/big sister/protector. How else to explain Franz's reluctance to mate with her?
2) The two-hour epilogue contains an extended surrealistic pastiche that upsets 90% of the people who like the previous (more realistic) 13 hours.
Biberkopf's brain snaps like a twig! How better to explain the mixture of chemicals the bad cocktail suddenly coursing through his head? It's brilliant in it's off-puttingness! Bad cocktails don't taste good! Some people don't understand how Lou Reed and Kraftwerk can be on the soundtrack when Franz (in insane delirium) is living in 1928:
People that's what they call 'modernist'. That's what they call 'expressionist'. Were you expecting Robert Flaherty in a Fassbinder film?
Epilogue: See the film. If THE DECALOGUE is the great cinematic short story collection BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ is the great cinematic novel.
This film is not for simpletons. Just like a long, great novel there will be stretches that will bore you a bit and other stretches that are riveting and will break your heart.
Two major points:
1) Don't get too caught up with what some people see as a form of homo-eroticism between Franz Biberkopf and Reinhold. Although expressionistic, Fassbinder has presented the material with enough objectivity that different people will come away with different subtexts. Fassbinder has explained the film as a love story between Franz and Reinhold but Fassbinder was bisexual.
Franz is a grown up naive child. One could easily see Franz's 'curiosity' about Reinhold as a longing for an absent father. Eva, the one constant in Franz's life, could represent his longing for an absent/replacement mother/big sister/protector. How else to explain Franz's reluctance to mate with her?
2) The two-hour epilogue contains an extended surrealistic pastiche that upsets 90% of the people who like the previous (more realistic) 13 hours.
Biberkopf's brain snaps like a twig! How better to explain the mixture of chemicals the bad cocktail suddenly coursing through his head? It's brilliant in it's off-puttingness! Bad cocktails don't taste good! Some people don't understand how Lou Reed and Kraftwerk can be on the soundtrack when Franz (in insane delirium) is living in 1928:
People that's what they call 'modernist'. That's what they call 'expressionist'. Were you expecting Robert Flaherty in a Fassbinder film?
Epilogue: See the film. If THE DECALOGUE is the great cinematic short story collection BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ is the great cinematic novel.
A Master's Masterpiece
heliotropetwo12 July 2008
This is my third time through, the first having been at its US theatrical release in the early 1980's and the second on video cassette in 1994. The new DVD set confirms my feeling this is the best work of performance in German since Wagner's Ring.
I am put in a trance by the mise-en-scene, the obsessive repetition of themes and variations in music, narrative, visual detail, camera angle, color coordination.
This elegy to the Age of Reason, the illusion of progress, the delusions of civilization, to my way of seeing, killed its creator and left us with a paradox: How can a work so pessimistic of our primacy as animals prove so conclusively the very primacy it refutes?
I am put in a trance by the mise-en-scene, the obsessive repetition of themes and variations in music, narrative, visual detail, camera angle, color coordination.
This elegy to the Age of Reason, the illusion of progress, the delusions of civilization, to my way of seeing, killed its creator and left us with a paradox: How can a work so pessimistic of our primacy as animals prove so conclusively the very primacy it refutes?
Damn dirty apes
petzlang11 December 2021
Just finished this in a 15 hr marathon. If you are stupid enough to sit down and intentionally watch this whole thing (like we did), it will probably teach you nothing. But; Kierkegaard, Marx, Plato, Nietche, Isaac and Abraham; all the references and hamfisted metaphors were really fun.
It is perhaps most fitting to describe this as a challenge in film viewing. A fun one at that, there were quite a few laughs.
It is perhaps most fitting to describe this as a challenge in film viewing. A fun one at that, there were quite a few laughs.
Miserable film
jones-pat09610 November 2012
I got the series after watching Heimat and really enjoying that. Many of those who reviewed that series recommended this. So I bought it. What a mistake. This has no story and it is a long self indulgent film. It is depressing and does not even provide a useful and interesting background to the German Weimar period. And as one reviewer pointed out, it was difficult to believe that the 'anti-hero', could ever attractive a woman. Never mind having a number of beautiful young women falling over him!
If you want to be depressed go for it. But as someone whose mother spent time in Germany at the same period. This film is a very poor representation of life in the 1930's.
If you want to be depressed go for it. But as someone whose mother spent time in Germany at the same period. This film is a very poor representation of life in the 1930's.
Shockingly not in IMDB Top 250
lew_jacobs26 March 2004
Saw in theatre on release, and the many-VHS set, and to this day still rank it unquestionably among top 10 of all time (even with the sometimes overly heavy Fassbinder spin).
The duration permits a whole new level of dramatic depth, as well as a story with many small and one big arc. Acting, music, photography, dialog - all a treat. Ending is love-it-or-hate-it (I didn't hate it).
Subtitles are about 75% legible on video, and were about 90% discernible in the theatre. Audio was often very loud - comes out kind of 'harsh' - wasn't as bad in the theatre.
After each several 'episodes' you'll have to go for a walk (equally so for the legs and the psyche)!
The duration permits a whole new level of dramatic depth, as well as a story with many small and one big arc. Acting, music, photography, dialog - all a treat. Ending is love-it-or-hate-it (I didn't hate it).
Subtitles are about 75% legible on video, and were about 90% discernible in the theatre. Audio was often very loud - comes out kind of 'harsh' - wasn't as bad in the theatre.
After each several 'episodes' you'll have to go for a walk (equally so for the legs and the psyche)!
Fassbinder's Magnum Opus
Flak_Magnet10 September 2009
Fassbinder purportedly stated that Alfred Doblin's "Berlin Alexanderplatz" saved his life as a youth. Fassbinder revered the novel, and had planned for years to film it. Like so much of the director's work, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a deeply personal project for Fassbinder. In many respects, this film is as much about Fassbinder as it is about Doblin's novel, with the director's conflicted sexuality, as well as his lifelong exposure to the seedier fringe of German society, unfolding nakedly on screen. This is a story about the impossibility of moral idealism in a broken society. It is a story about the price of love and redemption, as well as a parable of Post WWI Germany. It is the deepest, most complex love story I've seen, and the acting is impeccable. I will never forget the characters in this film, and watching them develop over the picture's 15 1/2 hour running time was a treasure. Franz Biberkopf (the main character) is as fundamental as Faust, The Tramp, or Charles Foster Kane. He is a part of everyone. Although a daunting untertaking, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is totally worth it. This is Fassbinder's Magnum Opus; one of the towering monuments of German Cinema, as well as one of the most immaculate literary adaptations ever completed. It is a bold, strange, and confident work from the heart; a enduring footprint of Fassbinder's genius and the high water mark of the German New Wave. This film was aired in 1980. Two years later, Fassbinder would be dead. Had he survived, even to middle age....The possibilities challenge imagination. ---|--- Reviews by Flak Magnet
Brilliant
bernardrmartin22 October 2008
Inconsistent (morally), perfunctory (in some of the staging), brilliant (in most if not all of the acting), inconclusive, anachronistic... but enough of Cervantes, Shakespeare, Brecht and Dickens... Yes it does rank with them. The film makes the book seem almost hesitant, tentative; Doeblin's debt to Joyce all too obvious. But the film has an almost 'punk' bloody-mindedness about it, like a fanzine. Strong-flavoured sauce splashed over chips. And although 'epic' ( in the Brechtian sense, not the Cecil B de Mille) it has shape like a Mahler symphony has shape - not a simple arc but a scratty, jumbly progress through a crowd that gets you there ... As for central character Franz - played as Der Dumme Michel rather than the devious weasel of the book - he's the one to whom learning is so often offered but who is so incapable of embracing it. Fassbinder makes us care to try to understand the person whom we would move away from so rapidly in the Kneipe. This is simply one of the (many) cultural pinnacles of the 20th Century. Thanks to Channel 4 for introducing it to us 20-odd years ago and thanks to Second Sight who has published it on DVD. Buy it! Make time and enjoy it!
How can one watch a 16 hour film?
bunko-paniczny11 December 2009
Easy! Or, it was for me. The first time I saw this film, was in New York, before the DVD was released. I was enchanted and mesmerized from the first reel! Admittedly, I am a Fassbinder fanatic, but I don't think the film requires the viewer to be one? However, in my opinion, it is a bit like watching a 16 hour amalgam of every Fassbinder film rolled into one gigantic series (there are bits reminiscent of his early work, Katzelmacher, etc. The mid period Sirk inspired "sturmdramas" The Merchant of Four Seasons, Fear Eats the Soul and even a hint at what his last film Querelle would be like. It's all there!). When they played the full series in Manhattan (I think you could watch two hours of it at a time?)...it played a few weeks w/other Fassbinder films...but I was there to watch THIS! I could have watched eight hours of it a day! The first day I went with my girlfriend at the time and a friend of mine. After the first part, my girlfriend dropped out (we broke up about a week after, I don't know if this filmic marathon (& my Fassbinder obsession) played a part? If it did?...Fassbinder won! and I'd do it again?). Naturally, she refused to go with me to the second part-but my friend hung in there-so we went. It was about an hour and a half into this viewing that my friend dropped out...people were dropping like flies, at the mercy of this magnum opus! I was still enchanted and could have watched another full eight hours! Well, my friends, I sat in that theater alone and watched the rest of the movie all by myself. I never found the film boring or dull, lagging or drab in any way. I simply watched, could not STOP watching; mesmerized and absorbed in the brilliance of this work. I even cried at the end...poor, poor Franz Biberkopf. I only mention the above because: this is clearly NOT a film for everyone. Hardly... I was elated when I heard Criterion was going to release this cinematic marvel to DVD. Like a sick junkie I was: shaking, sweating and fidgety while I anticipated the release of this new restoration of the original 16mm print(!), the drool fell and hung from my lips as I waited for "the day". Finally, it was released...it had a steep price tag, but like any junkie I was willing to rob and steal to get my 'fix'! Folks, it did NOT disappoint! Criterion did a brilliant, monumental...a miraculous job of restoring this film. In fact, I barely recognized it as the film I watched in the theater...it looked THAT much better! The one I saw was gray, washed out and kinda muddy looking. But this...wow! The colors actually pop...the focus is crystal clear...it's never TOO dark (as I remember parts were), it is miraculous what they have done! And you should ALL consider yourselves VERY lucky to have this re-shined gem to view and review. I highly doubt there will be a Fassbinder retrospective anytime soon? This is the next best thing! For those who like film and novels, this may be just the 'fix' you're looking for? Because, to me anyway, I always felt this the best combination of the two art forms. It is a film, a TV series, certainly and doesn't cheat you out of a cinematic experience and yet you can get just as absorbed and involved in the characters and their lives as you would a really fine novel. This is just plain brilliant film making! Not a wrong note or shot or performance in the whole thing: IN ALL 16 hours! That alone boggles the mind, but that Fassbinder (a mere man-?) was also able to create, construct and organize this masterpiece; on a television budget, at break-neck speed and on 16mm no less is enough to blow what's left of that mind! To me, there is no question: if there are geniuses of modern cinema? Fassbinder (or his 'spirit'anyway?) sits at the top of the pile! So...Do yourselves a favor and watch this film...whether you get as 'hooked' on it as I did. Gobbling the thing up, biting, ripping off and eating whole parts as you drool from your lips like some obese monster at Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas; or throw the whole thing into a tuna can like Billie Holiday, cook it up, suck it up in a giant syringe and inject the full series directly into your veins, like a sick slobbering junkie drooling over his fix in a shooting gallery; watching it in one sitting...or whether you slowly savor every nuance, brilliant shot,camera movement, Fassbinder's hypnotic narration, the spellbinding story and brilliant top notch acting: like a gourmet food critic or sniffing, swilling and looking at it through the sun like some high brow fine wine taster. No matter how you watch it...watch it! It's well worth the time and money... I'm telling you you're not gonna find anything this good on TV or the cinema these days...not a chance!
Good but insanely overlong
federovsky21 December 2008
First the positive. Fassbinder's direction is superb - The camera glides expressively from one composition to another, always precise, revealing, artistic. No amount of effort is spared in the creation of these shifting compositions; the intelligence and sensitivity of the camera contributes as much as the words do to character and meaning. There's also a terrific intensity about it. The performances of the main players are remarkable Fassbinder seems to be squeezing them like lemons.
This still disappointed though. I expected something richer, quirkier, funnier, more meaningful in short, smarter. Surprisingly, this plays it perfectly straight, which in itself causes confusion. It was hard to believe that our man Biberkopf was supposed to be a totally well-meaning chap, or that Mietze was just a silly good-natured girl. Seriously misled by the unrelentingly sombre, murky atmosphere, we are inclined to look (mistakenly) for deeper, darker things in everyone.
On his release from prison at the beginning Biberkopf comes across as barely sane, if not totally deranged, violent and immoral. He vows to make amends and lead a good life but he never really endears himself to us after that brutal introduction. He's as thick as two planks, he's fat, certainly not good looking, for much of the story he only has one arm, he is often cantankerous and easily goes off his head completely he's a klutz and a galumph. I didn't much like Biberkopf to begin with and barely did so by the end when I finally realised I was supposed to.
Bizarrely, Biberkopf attracts a constant succession of doting women. These women, though they are viewed mainly as chattels, are the most interesting characters in the film, but one suspects that both Doblin and Fassbinder really don't understand heterosexual women at all. Quite what these beautiful women see in Biberkopf is a mystery, and it frustrates our efforts to understand him and what the film is about.
Fassbinder extracts amazing performances in what a was a very quick shoot for its length. Gunther Lamprecht as Biberkopf dominates the film but something of this length really needs more than one focus.
The length is another major problem. There is simply no reason for this to be so long in terms of both the narrative and the meaning in fact the length works against both. Rather than giving itself time to breath, it often allows itself to tire. Almost every scene could have been done more economically. It is easy to identify entire scenes which could have been skipped, especially the repetitive ones.
The next problem is the gauzy sepia effect which, wearyingly, is maintained throughout. This creates an antique world remote in time and relevance, as if we are looking at people already dead and gone, an old photograph full of forgotten faces. This distances us both visually (apart from the grimy overlay, we are often looking through murky windows or reflections in tarnished mirrors) and emotionally. The lack of humour is another problem. Not a single laugh in a film of this length? Not even irony?
The narrative seems aimless in places due to repetition and lack of notable events. Apart from Biberkopf's stint at selling shoe-laces (one of the best sections), his various jobs are monumentally dull (such as standing in the U-bahn selling newspapers). There is one particularly tedious episode when he gets involved in politics. The last two episodes are much the best, when Gottfried John's diffident gangster Reinhold really comes to the fore. Reinhold is a much more complex and interesting character than Biberkopf. There is an extraordinary scene in which he lures Biberkopf's girl into a liason in the forest which shows us aspects of human nature that rocks our notions of propriety, skewing and denting human behaviour into barely recognisable shape. The scene is long and intense but it's memorable and is the only scene of real value and interest you might extract from the entire film.
Homosexual aspects are present but kept in the background. Biberkopf has a tender relationship with his old friend Meck, whose every appearance brings forth a melancholy (and woefully predictable) leitmotif as the two men stare deeply at each other. There are also strong hints that Biberkopf is emotionally attached to Reinhold despite the disaster that the man wreaks on his life. Perhaps therein lay the seed that attracted Fassbinder to the story self-destruction through a relationship that dare not speak its name does not even acknowledge its existence.
The music, characterised by a mournful trumpet solo unfortunately transported me to Yorkshire each time. Meck in particular looked like he'd stepped out of Last of the Summer Wine, and from what we saw of Berlin, this could easily have been Leeds. The mise en scene partly thanks to the murky visuals - is mainly oppressive. In general, the early critics were right, it is all too dark on the eye.
In conclusion, an overlong adaptation of a novel that clearly is more concerned with literary fireworks than cogent observations on life. Some big mistakes were made in the mise-en-scene that almost made the film unwatchable, but it is generally redeemed by brilliant direction and acting.
This still disappointed though. I expected something richer, quirkier, funnier, more meaningful in short, smarter. Surprisingly, this plays it perfectly straight, which in itself causes confusion. It was hard to believe that our man Biberkopf was supposed to be a totally well-meaning chap, or that Mietze was just a silly good-natured girl. Seriously misled by the unrelentingly sombre, murky atmosphere, we are inclined to look (mistakenly) for deeper, darker things in everyone.
On his release from prison at the beginning Biberkopf comes across as barely sane, if not totally deranged, violent and immoral. He vows to make amends and lead a good life but he never really endears himself to us after that brutal introduction. He's as thick as two planks, he's fat, certainly not good looking, for much of the story he only has one arm, he is often cantankerous and easily goes off his head completely he's a klutz and a galumph. I didn't much like Biberkopf to begin with and barely did so by the end when I finally realised I was supposed to.
Bizarrely, Biberkopf attracts a constant succession of doting women. These women, though they are viewed mainly as chattels, are the most interesting characters in the film, but one suspects that both Doblin and Fassbinder really don't understand heterosexual women at all. Quite what these beautiful women see in Biberkopf is a mystery, and it frustrates our efforts to understand him and what the film is about.
Fassbinder extracts amazing performances in what a was a very quick shoot for its length. Gunther Lamprecht as Biberkopf dominates the film but something of this length really needs more than one focus.
The length is another major problem. There is simply no reason for this to be so long in terms of both the narrative and the meaning in fact the length works against both. Rather than giving itself time to breath, it often allows itself to tire. Almost every scene could have been done more economically. It is easy to identify entire scenes which could have been skipped, especially the repetitive ones.
The next problem is the gauzy sepia effect which, wearyingly, is maintained throughout. This creates an antique world remote in time and relevance, as if we are looking at people already dead and gone, an old photograph full of forgotten faces. This distances us both visually (apart from the grimy overlay, we are often looking through murky windows or reflections in tarnished mirrors) and emotionally. The lack of humour is another problem. Not a single laugh in a film of this length? Not even irony?
The narrative seems aimless in places due to repetition and lack of notable events. Apart from Biberkopf's stint at selling shoe-laces (one of the best sections), his various jobs are monumentally dull (such as standing in the U-bahn selling newspapers). There is one particularly tedious episode when he gets involved in politics. The last two episodes are much the best, when Gottfried John's diffident gangster Reinhold really comes to the fore. Reinhold is a much more complex and interesting character than Biberkopf. There is an extraordinary scene in which he lures Biberkopf's girl into a liason in the forest which shows us aspects of human nature that rocks our notions of propriety, skewing and denting human behaviour into barely recognisable shape. The scene is long and intense but it's memorable and is the only scene of real value and interest you might extract from the entire film.
Homosexual aspects are present but kept in the background. Biberkopf has a tender relationship with his old friend Meck, whose every appearance brings forth a melancholy (and woefully predictable) leitmotif as the two men stare deeply at each other. There are also strong hints that Biberkopf is emotionally attached to Reinhold despite the disaster that the man wreaks on his life. Perhaps therein lay the seed that attracted Fassbinder to the story self-destruction through a relationship that dare not speak its name does not even acknowledge its existence.
The music, characterised by a mournful trumpet solo unfortunately transported me to Yorkshire each time. Meck in particular looked like he'd stepped out of Last of the Summer Wine, and from what we saw of Berlin, this could easily have been Leeds. The mise en scene partly thanks to the murky visuals - is mainly oppressive. In general, the early critics were right, it is all too dark on the eye.
In conclusion, an overlong adaptation of a novel that clearly is more concerned with literary fireworks than cogent observations on life. Some big mistakes were made in the mise-en-scene that almost made the film unwatchable, but it is generally redeemed by brilliant direction and acting.
A movie, a series, a tome about the troubles of living and darkness and death
Quinoa198425 November 2014
I could write and write about this series - like, take notes for every 'part' or episode - but then it wouldn't be accepted in these IMDb comments. Suffice to say, Fassbender's epic on the human condition (in a way it's fitting that he chose this as his longest-running project, a period piece that encapsulates a lot of his concerns about what it is to be a man, or a woman, or in a relationship, or how to respond or not respond in political situations, and the tragedies that can unfold) ebbs and flows as one of Fassbinder's best.
That is, I should say, when it's at its best. There are some times where scenes or even an episode can lag, but it's all so long and full of acting and dialog to chew on emotionally speaking that you're bound to find a story point or turn or scene that grabs you back in.
Oh, and that epilogue. I still can't get over it, and I mean in a Gaspar Noe Enter the Void sort of way. It's an overlong character study of a man that shouldn't be interesting, but he is just by the sheer fact that it's a 15 1/2 hour testament to the bittersweet nature of his life, of everything that Franz Biberkopf experiences and does, both decent, horrible-verging-unforgivable, and what happens to him (Gunter Lamprecht, who has so much to do in this series it's hard not to see it as the performance of a lifetime).
Indeed, with its many characters and sprawling urban storytelling (though a core set that really counts) it's what could be called a "Bittersweet Symphony of a City" really, and Berlin in the late 20's at that makes for one helluva setting any. It also has one hell of a villain in Reinhold, and a particular murder scene is among the most horrifying and repugnant and awesomely filmed in all of cinema, if only because Fassbinder chooses to repeat it several times in the series. And with that poetic narration that is the film/series biggest problem---and yet its quality that is unique to itself.
All in all, a work of humanistic art, and if it's not Fassbinder's crowning achievement it's all the more remarkable that he tries so much to get there.
That is, I should say, when it's at its best. There are some times where scenes or even an episode can lag, but it's all so long and full of acting and dialog to chew on emotionally speaking that you're bound to find a story point or turn or scene that grabs you back in.
Oh, and that epilogue. I still can't get over it, and I mean in a Gaspar Noe Enter the Void sort of way. It's an overlong character study of a man that shouldn't be interesting, but he is just by the sheer fact that it's a 15 1/2 hour testament to the bittersweet nature of his life, of everything that Franz Biberkopf experiences and does, both decent, horrible-verging-unforgivable, and what happens to him (Gunter Lamprecht, who has so much to do in this series it's hard not to see it as the performance of a lifetime).
Indeed, with its many characters and sprawling urban storytelling (though a core set that really counts) it's what could be called a "Bittersweet Symphony of a City" really, and Berlin in the late 20's at that makes for one helluva setting any. It also has one hell of a villain in Reinhold, and a particular murder scene is among the most horrifying and repugnant and awesomely filmed in all of cinema, if only because Fassbinder chooses to repeat it several times in the series. And with that poetic narration that is the film/series biggest problem---and yet its quality that is unique to itself.
All in all, a work of humanistic art, and if it's not Fassbinder's crowning achievement it's all the more remarkable that he tries so much to get there.
When excellent movies last what ever was needed.
rafasalin26 April 2008
"BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ" (Fassbinder, Germany,1980).
"We are too miserable for be unhappy".
Charles Bukowsky
The first thing is that person, that comes out from about four years prison: He is Franz Biberkopf (A Superb!!! Günter Lamprecht). He has now to continue in the outside word jail, but now alone. He holds in the chest a guilty wound which seeks to cover with alcohol, prostitutes and disposable women from another main character Reinhold Hoffman (Gottfried John) a psychopath guy with a tin layer of lamb. Fassbinder was fascinated with this two characters, Franz and Reinhold, form Alfred Döbling's novel about the same name, manly because by their latent homosexuality, which was clearly the only explanation of a friendship highly unlikely in other circumstances. Franz Biberkopf murdered his woman, almost without notice, at least the first blow. She cried; face him, hoping that he could do something, in the positive side of a couple mood. But Franz is far away of the emotional side of the brain, and cannot continue shaving himself, with one of those blades that seemed swords of cavalry, and as in a reflex movement, he cut a pit what it cannot handle, like a dermal bump. That act of despicable impulsively, transforms him into a paralyzed being by the possibility of the evil within. Germany is just through an economical crisis after of the First World War. There is a great economic depression, and a lonely man is only under his skin. It is an animal sentimental, but at the same time explosives. In his life stop by different women, but remains, as an angel love, Eva (Hanna Schygulla), which appear like a friend that is in love with him, but is living with a wealthy man. The other woman the he is love with is Mieze (Emilie "Mieze" Karsunke, by a young Barbara Sukowa, that was directed to act like Gelsomina, a Giulieta Massina's character in "La Strada" 1956. F. Fellini). After all, Franz Biberkof is without job, a pimp sometimes, because he loose one of his arms after to be betrayed by Reinhold, once. Subsequent to being released from jail, he strides, slips, falls from one stretch of his life to the next. He wants to be honest, but circumstances, "bar friends", enroll him again in merchandise robbery, and is betrayed by his companions, not one but several times. He is not allowed to have nothing not even love. Men like Biberkopf are everywhere, are the "Nowhere Man" of The Beatles song. They are just like floating corpses going in the current direction, the flood is their highway, doesn't matter were heading to. The editing and restoration of this film of 15 and a half hours, it was possible thanks to The Criterion Collection. The film was divided into six DVDs with 13 chapters, an epilogue to 2 hours and disk extras. The film, by extension, was shown on television, breaking record of viewers and inaugurated with much and inadvertently, the phenomenon of serial tale. That repeated after with Twin Picks of David Lynch, with decorum. Thanks Reine W. Fassbinder by "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and by all the other wonderful and master pieces that you created!!
"We are too miserable for be unhappy".
Charles Bukowsky
The first thing is that person, that comes out from about four years prison: He is Franz Biberkopf (A Superb!!! Günter Lamprecht). He has now to continue in the outside word jail, but now alone. He holds in the chest a guilty wound which seeks to cover with alcohol, prostitutes and disposable women from another main character Reinhold Hoffman (Gottfried John) a psychopath guy with a tin layer of lamb. Fassbinder was fascinated with this two characters, Franz and Reinhold, form Alfred Döbling's novel about the same name, manly because by their latent homosexuality, which was clearly the only explanation of a friendship highly unlikely in other circumstances. Franz Biberkopf murdered his woman, almost without notice, at least the first blow. She cried; face him, hoping that he could do something, in the positive side of a couple mood. But Franz is far away of the emotional side of the brain, and cannot continue shaving himself, with one of those blades that seemed swords of cavalry, and as in a reflex movement, he cut a pit what it cannot handle, like a dermal bump. That act of despicable impulsively, transforms him into a paralyzed being by the possibility of the evil within. Germany is just through an economical crisis after of the First World War. There is a great economic depression, and a lonely man is only under his skin. It is an animal sentimental, but at the same time explosives. In his life stop by different women, but remains, as an angel love, Eva (Hanna Schygulla), which appear like a friend that is in love with him, but is living with a wealthy man. The other woman the he is love with is Mieze (Emilie "Mieze" Karsunke, by a young Barbara Sukowa, that was directed to act like Gelsomina, a Giulieta Massina's character in "La Strada" 1956. F. Fellini). After all, Franz Biberkof is without job, a pimp sometimes, because he loose one of his arms after to be betrayed by Reinhold, once. Subsequent to being released from jail, he strides, slips, falls from one stretch of his life to the next. He wants to be honest, but circumstances, "bar friends", enroll him again in merchandise robbery, and is betrayed by his companions, not one but several times. He is not allowed to have nothing not even love. Men like Biberkopf are everywhere, are the "Nowhere Man" of The Beatles song. They are just like floating corpses going in the current direction, the flood is their highway, doesn't matter were heading to. The editing and restoration of this film of 15 and a half hours, it was possible thanks to The Criterion Collection. The film was divided into six DVDs with 13 chapters, an epilogue to 2 hours and disk extras. The film, by extension, was shown on television, breaking record of viewers and inaugurated with much and inadvertently, the phenomenon of serial tale. That repeated after with Twin Picks of David Lynch, with decorum. Thanks Reine W. Fassbinder by "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and by all the other wonderful and master pieces that you created!!
Berlin Alexanderplatz
moamedaliebaid7 May 2023
Widely hailed as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's crowning achievement, the 15-hour TV miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz remains a tough beast to tackle, because it's too drawn-out and episodic to be considered a "movie," yet too sparse to be consumed like TV. Based on an 1929 Alfred Döblin novel noteworthy for its multiple perspectives and slangy language, Berlin Alexanderplatz follows the failures and follies of Günter Lamprecht, an ex-con who struggles to straighten out his life in Weimar-era Germany, only to find himself susceptible to the pitch of every huckster, political party, and gang lord in the public square. He becomes a pimp, a crook, a drunk, and a shill for the Nazi party, until finally checking into a lunatic asylum-mirroring the journey that Germany itself would take between world wars. Fassbinder captures all this by aping some of Döblin's modernist effects: quoting statistics, letting us in on the characters' interior monologues, and inserting digressive anecdotes and excerpts from literature, including the original novel. Mostly though, he makes Berlin Alexanderplatz into a typical Fassbinder film, full of extended conversations recorded in long takes with fluid camera moves. For 15 hours.
When filmmakers subject audiences to movies of extreme length, they usually either have a complicated story to tell, or an experience they want the audience to endure. For Fassbinder and Berlin Alexanderplatz, it's most definitely the latter. (Reduced to its plot alone, the film would be closer to the 1931 version, which runs 90 minutes.) As a fan of Döblin's book since boyhood, Fassbinder made this film so he could obsessively share the book's every detail, from the opening scene, when Lamprecht emerges from jail and screams in terror at the proliferation of cars and skyscrapers, to the final scene of the hero laughing maniacally at the fate of a girl he'd thought had left him. Then Fassbinder caps the whole affair with a furious two-hour epilogue that mixes modern pop songs and dream imagery, while restaging some earlier passages of the movie with the characters and locations switched around, to show how little the story would be changed if the circumstances were different. Good choices, bad choices-everyone suffers regardless. Berlin Alexanderplatz's relentless pessimism will captivate those who share Fassbinder's worldview, and likely drain the goodwill of those who don't. Regardless, it's an admirable feat of sustained despondency.
When filmmakers subject audiences to movies of extreme length, they usually either have a complicated story to tell, or an experience they want the audience to endure. For Fassbinder and Berlin Alexanderplatz, it's most definitely the latter. (Reduced to its plot alone, the film would be closer to the 1931 version, which runs 90 minutes.) As a fan of Döblin's book since boyhood, Fassbinder made this film so he could obsessively share the book's every detail, from the opening scene, when Lamprecht emerges from jail and screams in terror at the proliferation of cars and skyscrapers, to the final scene of the hero laughing maniacally at the fate of a girl he'd thought had left him. Then Fassbinder caps the whole affair with a furious two-hour epilogue that mixes modern pop songs and dream imagery, while restaging some earlier passages of the movie with the characters and locations switched around, to show how little the story would be changed if the circumstances were different. Good choices, bad choices-everyone suffers regardless. Berlin Alexanderplatz's relentless pessimism will captivate those who share Fassbinder's worldview, and likely drain the goodwill of those who don't. Regardless, it's an admirable feat of sustained despondency.
a question about a character
biancabiz2 May 2009
This isn't a comment but rather a request for clarification about a character. In the cast listing on IMDb, the second listed character is said to have appeared 13 times. The character's name is Rechtsanwalt Löwenhund, and the actor is Karlheinz Braun. I couldn't figure out which cast member had appeared 13 times aside from Biberkopf. In another article about the movie, it lists Rechtsanwalt Löwenhund as "the lawyer." I don't remember a scene with a lawyer. I could not obtain information about an actor with that name on US or German search engines. I thought if his performance was that prominent, he'd be worthy of a mention in Google. Can anyone provide information about this. Danke.
An Odyssey
XxEthanHuntxX13 November 2021
Berlin Alexanderplatz develops a complex and intriguing existential character study of a weak-willed, violent, naive man, and his journey through misery, betrayal, love, lack of opportunities, crime and other worldly phenomenon. The epilogue, Fassbinder's surreal interpretation of this story, on the other hand, is unfortunately a failed attempt at a surreal adventure. But the series as a whole was substantially rewarding.
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