Despair

Although we do not find Fassbinder in the subtitles under the standard "Book and Direction," the film is one of his better ones, thanks in part to the excellent camera work of his frequent collaborator M. Ballhaus. However, the subject of the screenplay must not be overlooked because a plot requiring concentration (thanks to the 2-hour runtime) offers many surprises. The story follows the troubled industrialist Hermann, whose identity begins to unravel due to anxieties in his personal life (alienation from the country he lives in, emptiness of the people close to him), failures in his professional life (the decline of the factory and the end of the chocolate-sweet bourgeois lifestyle), and the emerging (chocolatey) brown threat. His unconscious split personality subconsciously serves as an escape from his empty rootless self, foolishly thinking that he can rid himself of it at the expense of adopting someone else's identity (legal and psychological). The film within the film is thus a clue to the very motif of the film. (10/04/2014)