And with that description, I also include myself. "Katzelmacher" is an early career work by German writer and director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He was in his early 20s still when he made this one and you see by the fact that it is in black-and-white that it's from early in his career, one of his first two full feature films. The cast includes a handful of actors that he worked with on a regular basis, most of all the really young Hanna Schygulla. It's a West German production and of course in German language. Here we have a film that will have its 50th anniversary soon. It runs for approximately 90 minutes and thus is among Fassbinder's shorter works. But I also feel it is among his more difficult to access. I struggled with caring for the characters at all, possibly because the focus is entirely on the dialogues here and very rarely only on what the characters are doing. It's all about the talk. One major plot point is how they deal with a Greek immigrant (which makes it a pretty current issue too), how they talk without respect about him on some occasions, but try to get together with him when they are alone with him. I am talking about the women of course. The Greek guy is played by Fassbinder himself and he is once again a scene stealer. His scenes were the best of the entire film. This movie received a great deal of awards recognition and it was a major success for Fassbinder, especially with the German Film Awards almost half a century later. But like I said, it's a very bleak sterile movie that is certainly not for everybody, possibly not the best choice to start getting into Fassbinder.
Review of Katzelmacher
