I have not sought out information on this film, but every bit I've ever heard/read focused on two things: the length of it and the epilogue's sharp turn into madness. What I had not heard before (and what I suspect is bandied about in more in-depth reviews that I just hadn't read) is that this is Fassbinder at his visual best. It's wrapped in shadows, tilted and framed through bars, around corners, and beneath its subjects. It captures the bleak beauty of Berlin in the throes of depression and nascent fascism. Had it been a shorter film, I would have screencapped it.

Since I brought it up, let me address the length. This is a miniseries. If you have the…

In a filmography cluttered with remarkable films, Berlin Alexanderplatz spotlights one of the most impressive character studies conceivable and arguably proves to be Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s greatest masterpiece. Alfred Doblin's source novel tells a comprehensive story as it observes ex-convict Franz Biberkopf on the streets of Berlin during the nineteen twenties as he strives to discover his identity simultaneously as he glides through a procession of intense but brief relationships.

The film has a mammoth runtime of fifteen and a half hours; however, it's never unnecessarily indulgent, and the plot moves unhurriedly in predominantly little increments which pick at the seams of Biberkopf as he strolls the rundown territories and backdrops crammed with props and costumes which convey meaningful symbolic…

Criterion Collection Spine #411
(Foreign language Miniseries)
(Divided into 13 parts with an Epilogue, spanning 15 hours 31 minutes)

Naivety, evil, and innocence personified through one man's struggle, during the pivotal years in Germany's history between World War 1 & 2.

“What are you afraid of, mister, it won’t be so bad. You won’t die. Berlin’s a big place. Where thousands live, there’s room for one more.”

I'm back from my 2020 summer vacation, and instead of watching a bunch of movies while I was away, I decided to tackle the Criterion Collection's colossal Berlin Alexanderplatz by auteur Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The series was adapted from a novel by Alfred Döblin, and is said to be one of Germany's most…

Much like my review for Out 1, I'll be updating this after each episode as opposed to trying to remember all of it at the end. Enjoy!

Part 1: The Punishment Begins

A fitting title for the beginning of this series as our lead character Franz is introduced. He is for lack of a better phrase a total piece of shit. Having spent the last 4 years in prison for killing his girlfriend, Fassbinder makes no illusions that this is someone we should root for. What strikes me immediately about this series is how it reminds me in a way of There Will Be Blood, in the sense that it follows a completely unlikable yet fascinating lead character. As a…

One does not simply walk into BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ.

This towering 15 1/2-hour all-or-nothing experience is something that every cinephile at some point needs to watch, digest, talk about, ruminate on, etc. I somehow managed to masochistically binge-watch it over the last 4 days, and I think that's the correct approach. If you're able to consume it under a shorter period, kudos to you, mostly because the film's hypnotic power grows on your ability to completely immerse yourself in, and endure, its sheer colossal length. The fact that it takes Fassbinder so long to tell this story ultimately becomes a theme itself. By repeating, prolonging, and stretching out scenes, Fassbinder milks what easily could've been told in 3-hours but would've lacked its…

Late last year I watched the first two seasons of Babylon Berlin (2017), written and directed by Tom Twyker (who wrote the first essay in the booklet that is part of the Criterion Collection box set of Berlin Alexanderplatz), Hendrik Handloegten and Achim Borries.  Their screenplay, which was based on the Gideon Rath detective series created by Volker Kutscher, is set in the same time period and location as Fassbinder’s series - late 1920s Berlin - and makes an interesting comparison piece.  

The two films show different sides of the city and intersect in the dance halls where the classes mix.  Most of the Twyker et al series happens in middle-class settings with a few sequences showing the working class origins of…

You’ve been blindfolded and are stumbling through a misty German woodland, feeling as ancient as time itself. You trip and fall headfirst over a log, your veil is slightly drawn back, you look out as blood trickles down your face, obscuring your vision, you squint and start to make out a chaotic industrial landscape, you blink and shapes start to solidify on a post-WWI Germany, brimming with hustling prostitutes, pimps, thieves, murderers and political radicalists who want nothing more than to corrupt you, to fuck you, and to eventually kill you. The year is 1928 in Berlin.

If he hadn’t before, Rainer Werner Fassbinder has certainly secured his spot in my top 5 favorite directors with this mind blowing miniseries/long-film…

I am ready to talk about this.

I think that between all the good films we heard about and we see in very respectable lists, somehow this one can be overlooked or ignored or it may seem not as interesting or highlighted enough or I don't know if it is the 15 hours long or what, but believe me when I say that 5/5 stars is SHORT RATING FOR THIS ONE.

Before this mammoth piece of cinema, I've just seen "The year with 13 moons" by german filmmaker Reiner Werner Fassbinder, so I was somehow aware of the style and the basic ideas that embed his work, but this one just was something much much much higher from what I…

There were times during Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 900 minute magnum opus television series when I wanted to give it 1/2 star. There were also times, admittedly much fewer, and mostly relegated to the fantastic two hour epilogue which no doubt influenced many of my favorite directors, when I wanted to give it five stars. I watched it throughout the month of September, finished it the first week of October, but wanted to sit with it for a while before logging it, to see which polar opposite felt right. Seems I decided to split the difference.

For such a great length, it is surprisingly easy to logline. Adapted from Alfred Döblin's book of the same name, Berlin Alexanderplatz takes place in…