EFFI BRIEST. (1974) DIRECTED, PRODUCED AND NARRATED BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER. WRITTEN BY RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER AND THEODOR FONTANE. BASED ON THE 1894 BOOK BY THEODOR FONTANE.
MUSIC BY CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS.
CINEMATOGRAPHY BY DIETRICH LOHMANN AND JÜRGEN
JÜRGES.
STARRING HANNA SCHYGULLA, WOLFGANG
SCHENCK AND ULLI LOMMEL.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This really is an extraordinary film,
said to be the film of controversial director Rainer Werner
Fassbinder's on which he lavished the most care, time and attention.
It's a black-and-white German-language film, set in the
tightly-buttoned-up, stiff-necked Prussian society of the Bismarck era.
It's the story of a dazzlingly beautiful
young woman called- you guessed it- Effi Briest. She's played by an
actress whom Fassbinder favoured, and I must say I can't blame him.
She's exceptionally gorgeous and she plays the part of the ringletted hottie as if she's born
to it.
With her masses and masses of fabulous
curly hair, slim figure, full sexy mouth and huge expressive eyes, Effi could probably
have any man she wants. It was the olden days, however, and her
parents are quick enough to marry her off to a much older man when she's still only at the
tender age of seventeen.
Baron Geert von Instetten is a big bulky
dark-haired chap whom I personally find attractive, especially seeing
as he's rich and has a fabulous mansion in the countryside, haha. I
think he's a little too old and serious for Effi, though, Effi who
likes to swing high on the garden swing with her long hair flying out
behind her while she giggles and gossips with her girlfriends about
men.
The couple certainly don't seem to have
a happy married life. Effi finds her husband's mansion a little
spooky for her tastes and the Baron's housekeeper Johanna is a proper
misery. A regular Mrs. Danvers, in fact. We know that the marriage is
consummated because the Baron and Effi have a daughter called Annie
together, but the Baron isn't overly affectionate towards his young
bride and, eventually, the inevitable happens. Effi meets another
man...
His name is Major Crampus (what a
terrible name!), he's a friend
of the Baron's (isn't that how it always happens?) and
he has an utterly silly twirly moustache, but Effi clearly doesn't mind. The pair
start a risky affair. It's hard to entirely blame Effi, as she
clearly feels neglected and unloved by her husband, with whom she
possibly had little enough in common to begin with.
For
myself, well, I personally wouldn't do anything to jeopardise the
marriage with the rich husband and besides, I dig older men anyway.
But hey, the heart wants what the heart wants and Effi bestows upon
the lucky Crampas (again, what a terrible name!)
all the love of which she's capable. As she's a normal red-blooded
young woman, that's probably quite a lot of good lovin'...
It's
what happens after the
affair is discovered that's almost the most interesting part of this
exquisite and beautifully-photographed film. The two men resolve
their differences in a ridiculously outdated, old-fashioned way that actually solves little. Effi, in turn, is unfairly ostracised by society in a
way that's eerily reminiscent of what happens to Vivien Leigh in the film of Leo
Tolstoy's ANNA KARENINA.
The treatment
Effi receives at the hands of her husband, her parents, her own
daughter and society in general is enough to make you spit with rage
at the unfairness of it all. The ending in particular is sad as the
film comes full circle, ending as it began in the windswept old
garden of Effi's parents' house, the garden where she used to swing for
hours on her childhood swing in happier times.
Thanks
to ARROW FILMS, this
stunning-looking, thought-provoking film is out now on Blu-Ray, which
is excellent news for fans of the director's, who sadly died in 1982
from a drugs overdose, aged only 37. The film forms part of a
collection that also includes the Fassbinder gems FOX AND HIS
FRIENDS (1975), CHINESE
ROULETTE (1976) and a number of
his earliest works.
My
favourite of these early works of Fassbinder's is LOVE
IS COLDER THAN DEATH (1969),
a black-and-white gangster movie in which the director himself plays
Franz, a small-time
pimp
who's torn between his sexy prostitute girlfriend Johanna (played
by the same beautiful actress who portrays Effi Briest) and
his friend Bruno, a gangster.
Bruno,
incidentally, is played by the same guy who will go on to play Effi's
lover Major Crampas in EFFI BRIEST in
1974. It's a small world, the world of hotshot movie directors, and
directors certainly have their favourites...!
There's a really funny scene in LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH in which one of the girlfriend's clients turns up for a session with his favourite hooker only to find Franz and Bruno seated at the table in the girlfriend's flat, casually stroking the machine-guns they plan to use in a bank robbery.
Just
what you don't want to
see when you've come for your weekly
spanking/enema/nipple-torture/willy-whipping or chest-waxing,
etc....! It's enough to make a john soil his britches, haha.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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