Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980, 2007 DVD) (review)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder does the Weimar Republic

Saying Berlin Alexanderplatz is a complex and multilayered film is an understatement. Difficult to explain, it is alternatively exciting, frustrating, confusing, yet ultimately a rewarding saga set in late 1920s Berlin as the Weimar Republic stumbled blindly toward its demise at the hands of the fascists, backed by elements of big business and the army. Released by the Criterion Collection as a special sevendisk DVD set late last year, this restoration of Fassbinder’s more than fifteen hours of reflections on Germany between the world wars is based on Alfred Doblin’s famous novel of the same name. The novel Berlin Alexanderplatz has been compared to James Joyce’s Ulysses and is often hailed as one of the best works in the German language of the first half of the twentieth century. In addition to a high-definition digital transfer from the 2006 Fassbinder Foundation restoration of the 1980 epic masterpiece, this set includes a 1931 film version that has a rather forced and implausibly happy ending, as well as interviews with the cast and crew and a number of other interesting and useful extras.

On one level, this is the saga of former transport worker Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht) whom we meet as he is released from a four-year prison term for killing his lover in a fit of rage. What follows is the gripping soap opera of a childlike man who appears to drift through Berlin without understanding what is happening, most of all to himself. On another level, Berlin Alexanderplatz shows Germany, and most of all her capital Berlin, in the death throes of democracy as it awaits Hitler’s brown plague and the establishment of the murderous Third Reich. Unlike the musical Cabaret, there are no portraits of thrill-seeking members of the Anglo-Saxon upper middle classes slumming in Berlin. Rather, Fassbinder relentlessly presents his viewers with a view of marginalized members of society, the unemployed or semi-employed inhabitants of what one might call the sub-proletariat or maybe the lumpen-proletariat. The only people shown as doing tolerably well are prostitutes, thieves and, of course, the oft seen but seldom heard members of the upper class.

Upon his release from prison, we see Frank Biberkopf stunned by all the visual and auditory stimuli of Berlin. It seems he simply can not process such a vast amount of stimulation. Could Biberkopf’s inability to deal with his new freedom be parallel to that of Germany freed from military rule after four years of war? While on the surface he adjusts, Biberkopf’s behavior suggests that it is too much for him to process. More than a period of readjustment, it soon becomes clear that Franz, although good hearted, strong and optimistic, is ultimately clueless. We seldom see him outside as the saga is filmed almost entirely indoors, often in his apartment or local bar. His plans, ideas and actions consist of a confused reaction to whatever or whoever is asserting the most influence on him at that moment. Women are his salvation, as soon after his release he meets Lina (Elisabeth Trissenaar) who helps prop up the unsteady Biberkopf in both financial and emotional terms.

As he stumbles, often literally due to his heavy drinking, through the final act of the first German Republic, Franz unwittingly mirrors the crisis of the larger society. At one point, he attempts to sell pornography to earn an honest living. Later, he is talked into selling Nazi newspapers. While engaged in peddling fascist newsprint, Biberkopf meets a Jew whom he quickly assures that, despite his Nazi armband, it’s nothing personal. Given Fassbinder’s well-known Marxist views, one is tempted to interpret this scene as commenting on the Holocaust as having more to do with business than personal anti-Semitism.

The filmmaker’s views emerge in starker relief when Franz runs into a group of former friends in a bar. It turns out that they are Communists. Taunting...