Fassbinder: at elske uden at kræve

This standard documentary portrait offers a chronological cross-section of RWF’s life. The words are mostly those of Fassbinder himself and, to a lesser extent, his two friends/colleagues, Irm Hermann and Harry Baer, who often talk more about themselves than about Fassbinder, and the maker of the documentary, who puts the facts into context with a brief commentary. Though Thomsen knew Fassbinder personally, the documentary maintains a rare matter-of-fact tone and does not even make an attempt at polemics (the film begins with the most explicit expression of opposition to Fassbinder’s work). Due to the uninventive alternation of talking heads and film clips, the documentary comes across as somewhat stiff and monotonous. It is not helped by its division into seven rather vaguely defined chapters. The most beneficial parts of the film are those in which Fassbinder talks about his childhood, which obviously had a great influence on the key themes of his work. The openness of his confessions may be particularly beneficial for those who want to view Fassbinder’s work from an auteur-psychoanalytical perspective. Overall, however, the film contains little information that wasn’t provided many years earlier in, for example, the documentary I Don’t Just Want You to Love Me, which better strikes a better balance between revealing Fassbinder’s personal life and the characteristic elements of his films. Experts in Fassbinder will not learn much that is new; for newcomers, on the other hand, the documentary fails to convey what makes the films of this cynical and, in most shots, apparently ill-tempered man special. (15.04.2017)