Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

Typical Fassbinder. His approach to the topic and his characters resembles the joke about when a boy goes to the doctor with a swollen leg and the doctor sympathetically asks, "Did you get stung by a bee?" And the boy replies, "It landed on me but didn't sting me. I hit it with a hammer." It must be said that one blow with a hammer is not enough for Fassbinder, and he indiscriminately smashes everything he wants to criticize. His targets are quite clear: consumerist society, the ritualized wearisome everydayness, and the banality of the existence of an average middle-class person who is afraid to stand out. On the other hand, what can Fassbinder offer as a counterbalance? A homosexual who has never felt the need and has not been exposed to the necessity of taking care of his own family, he has tried all sorts of drugs, and in his independence relied on the certainties of the German social state. Hanna Schygulla, whose character is supposed to be the liberated counterbalance to Mr. R., is an embodiment of just such poseurism. It is easy to be free where one is not bound by any obligations. And the culmination of the story is extraordinarily overwrought. A film like Falling Down was able to work with the motif of a person who has reached the edge in a far more credible way. If everyone tried to deal with the fatigue of the stereotype the way Mr. R. does, we wouldn't last long. It must be acknowledged that Fassbinder did a good job of capturing work and family routines, but for example, The Office managed to deal with those things more elegantly and with humor. Overall impression: 50%. (16/11/2009)