Theatrical rigidity becomes part and parcel of R.W. Fassbinder’s fetchingly monochromatic period drama, an adaptation of Theodor Fontane’s novel, EFFI BRIEST, predominantly accompanied by its own author’s ur-texts in voiceover, narration or title cards, stars Hanna Schygulla as our titular heroine, a Prussian young girl consents to the marriage proposal of Baron Geert von Instetten (Schenck), a former suitor of her mother Louise (Pempeit), out of a desire for prestige, although she is only 18, and her husband is over twice of her age.
Fassbinder stridently retains its source novel’s poetic realism through the film’s gorgeous costumes, furnitures and a repressive air of solemnity, a matter-of-factness in probing into Effi and Geert’s turbulent and unbalanced marriage, wherein a trophy wife’s seemingly perfect life is under constant gaslighting and doctrinaire manipulation from her haughty husband, and Fassbinder counterintuitively keeps a perverse remove from key incidents, totally relies on wording to elucidate thoughts and relentless long takes to consistently test audience’s patience, it is a bold move, but on the strength of the picture’s uncannily stylish compositions (mirrors and doors are key partitions to transmit the despondent feeling of alienation, detachment, even cruelty) and a beguiling aura of melancholia, mostly fragrantly leavened by Schygulla’s deeply affecting performance, candid, confessional but also quaintly relatable, and, on a lesser note, a compassionate turn by Ursula Strätz as the faithful maid Roswitha.
On the other hand, nary a scintilla of charm and sympathy can be elicited by Schenck’s hoity-toity impression, starchily dwelling on the 19th century code of honor, his Geert epitomizes the pernicious lowdown of a patriarchal society and he will have none of the repentance as the originator of unhappiness, dismal and so-called honorable killing.
It is in evidence of Fassbinder’s own investment of this production, as an unbowed exponent of empowering women in his vast canon, EFFI BRIEST operates as a harrowing counterexample, Effi is a tragic figure who, even in extremis, doesn’t realize that she is entrapped under the oceanic suppression simply because that she is born as a weaker sex, all she can do is trying to reconcile herself with this unfair world, against which she has no volition to rebel, that bitter taste stubbornly stick in a viewer’s throat.
Sensibly disregards a more dramatic narrative and constructs an all-absorbing atmosphere of restraint and didacticism, Fassbinder’s EFFI BRIEST is definitely worth one’s time even if evanescent frustration might bob up intermittently due to its unconventional narratology, when all is said and done, it is a fairly rewarding experience, once its pedagogic repetition transcends into a force of condemnation and introspection.
referential entries: Fassbinder’s DESPAIR (1978, 7.8/10), THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972, 7.1/10); Roman Polanski’s TESS (1979, 8.0/10).
