HÄNDLER DER VIER JAHRESZEITEN / THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS (1972)

For acolytes and agnostics, German New Wave writer/director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s story begins here.  Still in his mid-20s, he’d been pumping out films, theater & essays at a blistering pace when he took a breather, call it a half-year sabbatical, just as he was on the cusp of an æsthetic breakthru after seeing a retrospective of films by master Hollywood melodramatist Douglas Sirk, getting new attention at the time.  And while FOX AND HIS FRIENDS/’75 is usually considered Fassbinder’s most Sirkian film (he cast himself in the Jane Wyman part!), a new tone and new filmic formulations are immediately evident.  (Especially with the use of color & composition finally seen clear thanks to new restorations on Criterion DVD.)   And if MERCHANT remains a bumpy, uneasy affair, it’s still as close as we’re ever going to get to a Douglas Sirk version of WOZZECK.*  Our Wozzeck everyman is Hans Epp, who goes from Foreign Legionaire abroad to fruit vendor back home, from romantic wooer to sadistic husband, from family embarrassment to family success, from a failing fruit cart to successful small businessman; losing friends, lovers, and his wife & daughter’s respect along the way.  Then falling into deep depression and drinking himself to death with endless toasts of Schnapps.  Happy Days!  With it’s odd blunt tone and non-professional stiff acting (the filmmaking transformed into what Fassbinder is aiming at whenever Hanna Schygulla as the sister shows up), it’s never going to be a work for casual viewing.  But there’s more than mere promise, and in many ways, it remains one of Fassbinder’s most watchable films.

DOUBLE-BILL:  *The German New Wave got around to the Georg Büchner play (as opposed to the oft-filmed Alban Berg opera) in 1979, Werner Herzog directing Klaus Kinski as Wozzeck.  (not seen here)