Horst_In_Translation Review of In a Year with 13 Moons

In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)

Works thanks to tremendous lead performance

[6/10 · 6 July 2016]

"In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden" is a West German German-language film from 1978 written and directed by German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This is a movie already from the last 5 years of his career and sadly also his life. At 120 minutes, it is one of his longer works and it is also in color like most other of his films. The lead actor here is Volker Spengler and he worked with Fassbinder on several films. This one here, however, is his great moment in the spotlight. The other roles he had were considerably smaller. Fassbinder is known for picking some of his regular cast members as lead characters to give them their well-deserved attention and like I said here it is for Spengler. Another example would be Zeplichal in "I Only Want You to Love Me". Fassbinder is also known for elaborating a lot on smaller characters and giving them screen-time, but here it is really almost everything about Spengler's Erwin/Elvira. And his performance is also what carries this pretty long movie and what makes it work. I can imagine that many other actors may have done a worse job and because of that I would have given a lower rating. Spengler, however, is really convincing. It is also good that Fassbinder kept the absurdities fairly low in terms of quantity this time, which he sometimes fails to do and it can destroy a serious movie like "The Third Generation". And as I said "serious movie", it needs to be noted that this film is 100% drama and tragedy about a severely struggling soul and how he pulls some of the people around him into his misery. There may be some situational comedy at times, but this is always true with Fassbinder and still nobody should see this as a funny film. As a whole, this is definitely among my more preferred Fassbinder films. There some films from him that I like even more, but not too many as I felt that this one here rarely dragged despite its massive runtime. And there is certainly a handful Fassbinder films that I found a lot less interesting. I recommend the watch here. "In a Year with 13 Moons" is a quality film that once again includes several of Fassbinder's regular actors, not only Spengler, but also Caven, Kaufmann and John only to mention a few. Go check it out. And one final note, this is a very personal film for Fassbinder as he made it to deal with the suicide of a beloved one. You can look for details yourself if you care about the background story.