Best movie of this year hands down!

Wonderful character development!

The Worst Film Ever

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

"The Marriage of Maria Braun" tells the story of post-war Germany as seen by a young woman, the title character Maria Braun. The film opens in 1943 with Maria's marriage to a soldier named Hermann Braun. After only a day spent together, Hermann must return to his unit, and is later posted as missing, presumed dead, on the Russian front. After the war we find Maria (like most Germans during this period) living in desperate poverty, but she finds work as a bar hostess and, believing her husband to be dead, becomes the lover of Bill, a black soldier with the American occupation forces, who helps to support her financially. (At least, Bill is supposed to be American, but whoever wrote his dialogue seems to have been more familiar with British than with American English. He makes far more frequent use of the expletive "bloody" than any American I have come across). Subsequent developments involve Hermann's unexpected return to Germany after being held in a Soviet prison camp, his imprisonment for the killing of Bill (a crime actually committed by Maria herself) and Maria's life as the mistress of Karl, a wealthy industrialist.The French film critic Jean de Baroncelli saw Maria Braun as an allegory of Germany, "a character that wears flashy and expensive clothes, but has lost her soul". There is certainly some truth in this comparison, but I felt it might perhaps be more accurate to say that it is the marriage of Maria and Hermann which is an allegory of the plight of Germany during the Cold War years. When the film was made in the late seventies, the country had been partitioned between East and West ever since the end of World War II more than thirty years earlier and hopes of reunification seemed destined to remain unfulfilled. (Few people in 1979 could have predicted that the Berlin Wall would fall in only ten years time). Maria, who sells herself to an American for nylon stockings and cigarettes and is later seduced by a capitalist, can therefore be seen as symbolising the flashy and prosperous if rather soulless West Germany, while Hermann, held prisoner by the Soviets, represents the Communist East.The director Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the leading members of the "New German Cinema" group of auteurs of the late sixties, seventies and eighties. He had the reputation of being an "arthouse" director, but this film is one of his more approachable works. Despite numerous clashes between Fassbinder and his collaborators, clashes which led to an acrimonious lawsuit which was to continue even after the director's death, it was both a critical and a commercial success in West Germany and, despite its political subtext, was also shown in cinemas in the East.Many European films from the Cold War years have since lost much of their relevance, but this one still remains watchable today. The lovely Hanna Schygulla, who had earlier appeared in some of Fassbinder's other films such as "Effi Briest", succeeds in making Maria a brilliantly realised character and in persuading us of the central truth of the film, namely that, whatever her relationships with Bill and Karl, it is Hermann who is really her true love and that in her heart she stays true to him. She reminds us that "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is not just a film about post-war Germany, and certainly not just a film about politics, but also a human drama with a very human character at its centre. 6/10

Maria Braun is an extraordinary woman presented fully and very credibly, despite being so obtuse as to border on implausibility. She will do everything to make her marriage work, including shameless opportunism and sexual manipulation. And thus beneath the vicey exterior, she reveals a rather sweet value system. The film suffers from an abrupt and unexpected ending which afterwards feels wholly inadequate, with the convenience familiar from ending your school creative writing exercise with 'and then I woke up'. It is also book-ended at the other end with the most eccentric title sequence I've ever seen, but don't let any of that put you off.

Sporadically this does demonstrate masterful dialog and especially finely crafted direction from the distinguished German filmmaker, but summing it's entirety as a masterpiece feels way overpraised. There seems to be almost as much dead weight being carried around in The Marriage of Maria Braun as there is subtle grace.Thankfully to aid Fassbinder's articulate work is lead (and apparent muse) Hanna Schygulla. Her transformation, however underhanded in pace, is entertaining to behold and probably one of the stronger female performances of the time. She exudes a sensuality better suited for long pauses then line recitals, but overall does an admirable job through and through.Purists may revel in it's technical pronunciations and metaphoric finesse, but a certain emotional detachment lingers the entire time- contrary to what the script would imply. Don't let the typical European surprise shock ending and over-theorized allegorical conjecture fool you into calling this a masterpiece, it is still just a reasonably well made journey into the female psyche of post-war Germany.

This film exhibits artful cinematic techniques wherein instead of landscape capturing the attention of the camera it is small details in how someone appears, how the woman may be wearing a cocktail hat and wrapped in a sheet. How the husband may be wearing a hat and socks and shoes and his underwear and both seem so completely at ease and comfortable. How provocative the woman is posed is another feature of the tableau that the director chooses to let us know she is a free spirit sexually and aims to get the pleasure she seeks without flirting directly or with any particular sensitivity to what the man may be feeling. The relationship between the wife and husband is unique. It is an open one wherein she holds nothing back, feels no particular shame for how she has behaved and wants to share these facts with him because her primary focus always is on the fact of their marriage. Nothing and no one can come between the two of them. Only the chances of fate can intervene---his imprisonment during the war and what follows after his return at long last. A very intriguing film which is totally absorbing.