Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979)
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Film Review

Rainer Fassbinder's biggest international hit, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a powerful drama which vividly reflects the sense of alienation that most young people in Germany felt in the mid 1970s - alienation which was to be one of the motivating forces behind the New German cinema.  This was the first in a series of three films made by Fassbinder - known as the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) trilogy - which provide a subtle allegory of Germany's reconstruction in the aftermath of WWII through the lives of three very different women. The other two films are: Lola (1981) and Veronika Voss (1982), the latter released just a few months before the director's death in June 1982.

Like many artists of his generation, Fassbinder was both fascinated and perturbed by the way in which the German people had set about rebuilding their country after WWII, slavishly pursuing the American capitalist model at the cost of losing their cultural identity and sense of social cohesion.  Maria Braun, the central character in Fassbinder's first BRD film, personifies a Germany that is all too eager to pursue material wealth and prosper from an economic miracle, with scant regard for the emotional and spiritual consequences.  Just why Maria does this is not made clear.  Perhaps she genuinely is a shallow opportunist who just wants her share of the good times, her place in the sun.  Or maybe her mindless pursuit of wealth is intended to be a distraction, to prevent her from having to look backwards and confront the traumas of the recent past.  Shame is, after all, a far greater stimulant than greed.

Fassbinder's appropriation of Brechtian technique (which stems from his interest in theatre and the films of Douglas Sirk) is entirely suited to this film, perhaps more so than any other of the director's works.  Fassbinder does not want his audience to get too close to his characters.  He wants there to be a distance between them, so that the spectator is compelled to experience something of the helplessness and disconnection which he himself feels.  Fassbinder poses a question which no one can answer.  Just how could a civilised and proud nation like Germany surrender her soul merely for material gain?

For all its icy detachment and theatricality, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a compelling character study which brilliantly straddles the thin dividing line between black comedy and poignant tragedy.  It is all the better for featuring Hanna Schygulla in one of her most memorable roles, perfectly cast as the alluring but cynically manipulative Maria.  Schygulla's cold beauty and apparent lack of emotion serve, in true Brechtian fashion, to distance her character from us, but this doesn't mean that we have no sympathy for Maria's plight.  On the contrary, we quickly realise that Maria's apparent heartlessness is too forced to be real, and so she acquires an aura of vulnerability.  By the time she is shown to be a martyr, we can only pity her as her tragic victory is transformed into a triumphant failure. Professionally (if not personally), Schygulla and Fassbinder were a match made in Heaven and together they accomplished some of their finest work, on films such as: Katzelmacher (1969), Gods of the Plague (1970) and Fontane - Effi Briest (1974).

The Marriage of Maria Braun may have been a major critical and commercial success, but its production was a dangerously fraught experience for Fassbinder, who was simultaneously developing the script for his big budget television series Berlin Alexanderplatz.  Overworked and consuming large quantities of cocaine to keep him going, the director's reputation for being a hard taskmaster was amply borne out on the set.  Fassbinder was livid when he found out that his producer Michael Fengler had deliberately oversold the film rights to secure financial backing from another company, leaving Fassbinder with only a 15 per cent share in the profits instead of the agreed 50-50 split.  This brought a decisive end to Fassbinder's longstanding relationship with Fengler and caused the director to sack most of his film crew.  The legal wrangling over the film rights rumbled on for several years and was not resolved until several years after Fassbinder's death.  The irony of this will not be lost on anyone who watches the film.

Film Synopsis

In 1943,  a young German woman named Maria marries Hermann Braun, just before he goes off to fight on the Russian front.  Shortly after the end of the war, Maria's brother-in-law returns with the news that Hermann has been killed in action.  To support herself and her mother, Maria finds work in a bar frequented by American servicemen.  It is here that she meets Bill, a black American sergeant, who provides her with stockings and cigarettes in exchange for sexual favours.   One day, Bill and Maria are about to make love when Hermann shows up unexpectedly.  Maria accidentally kills Bill when he gets into a fight with her husband.  Hermann takes the blame for the killing and ends up serving a prison sentence.  To assuage her guilt, Maria sets about acquiring as much personal wealth as she can so that the couple can enjoy a comfortable life once Hermann has been released.  A chance meeting with the successful businessman Karl Oswald provides Maria with just the opportunity she needs to get rich quick.  Beginning as Oswald's secretary, she soon becomes his mistress and business partner.  Maria's opportunism proves to be more successful than she knows, for Oswald intends to leave her everything he possesses in his will.  Alas, this stroke of good fortune comes at a price which Maria may not be prepared to pay...