"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" was the last film in director Rainer Werner Fassbiner's most politically radical phase, a period from 1970 to 1975 in which he wrote and directed a staggering number of feature films (approximately 23), most notably "The Merchant of Four Seasons", "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul", "Beware of a Holy Whore", "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", "Effi Briest" and "Fox and His Friends".
"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" tells the story of Emma Kusters (Brigitte Mira), a hard working housewife whose life is turned upside down when her husband - who works at a local factory - kills his boss's son before committing suicide.
Fassbinder's films are often offbeat, and so it's no surprise that "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven's" tone is all over the place. Part satire, part drama, heavily ironic and rife with distancing effects, the film primarily observes as Emma Kusters deals with her dysfunctional family after her husband's death. Battling for Kuster's attention are also various segments of society, all of whom who seek to exploit the widow's crisis.
So we're introduced to Corinna (Emma's conniving daughter who uses her father's suicide to bolster her lagging career as a singer), media vultures (who sensationalize their stories and portray Emma's husband as a fiend), political activists, anarchists, communists and tabloid reporters, all of whom have hidden agendas.
Eventually it is revealed that Emmas's husband killed his boss due to the threat of factory layoffs. Fassbinder's point, though, is that each character injected into the film serves only to intrude upon Emma's grief and to distort historical truth, robbing her spouse's last acts of their political significance. Misled and appropriated by everyone in sight, treated as a pawn by both the political right and ultra-left, Emma eventually ends up dead, killed off screen like her spouse.
The film's title seems to reference Maxim Gorky's novel "Mother", another tale about a working class woman who develops political consciousness and joins a revolutionary movement, and also "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht, a playwright whom Fassbinder admired.
Like these tales, Fassbinder attempts to look at the social and emotional consequences of exploitation, but unlike these works, Fassbinder can find no optimistic solution. "Everybody is out for something," he has Emma say at one point. "Once you realise that, everything is much simpler."
8/10 - Visually the film is a bit scatter-shot – the phenomenal speed at which Fassbinder worked has this effect – but Fassbinder's writing is strong ("Everything is chemicals!") and he makes simple but effective use of symbolism. See "Despair" and "World on a Wire", two of Fassbinder's greatest pictures.
"Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" tells the story of Emma Kusters (Brigitte Mira), a hard working housewife whose life is turned upside down when her husband - who works at a local factory - kills his boss's son before committing suicide.
Fassbinder's films are often offbeat, and so it's no surprise that "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven's" tone is all over the place. Part satire, part drama, heavily ironic and rife with distancing effects, the film primarily observes as Emma Kusters deals with her dysfunctional family after her husband's death. Battling for Kuster's attention are also various segments of society, all of whom who seek to exploit the widow's crisis.
So we're introduced to Corinna (Emma's conniving daughter who uses her father's suicide to bolster her lagging career as a singer), media vultures (who sensationalize their stories and portray Emma's husband as a fiend), political activists, anarchists, communists and tabloid reporters, all of whom have hidden agendas.
Eventually it is revealed that Emmas's husband killed his boss due to the threat of factory layoffs. Fassbinder's point, though, is that each character injected into the film serves only to intrude upon Emma's grief and to distort historical truth, robbing her spouse's last acts of their political significance. Misled and appropriated by everyone in sight, treated as a pawn by both the political right and ultra-left, Emma eventually ends up dead, killed off screen like her spouse.
The film's title seems to reference Maxim Gorky's novel "Mother", another tale about a working class woman who develops political consciousness and joins a revolutionary movement, and also "Mother Courage and Her Children" by Bertolt Brecht, a playwright whom Fassbinder admired.
Like these tales, Fassbinder attempts to look at the social and emotional consequences of exploitation, but unlike these works, Fassbinder can find no optimistic solution. "Everybody is out for something," he has Emma say at one point. "Once you realise that, everything is much simpler."
8/10 - Visually the film is a bit scatter-shot – the phenomenal speed at which Fassbinder worked has this effect – but Fassbinder's writing is strong ("Everything is chemicals!") and he makes simple but effective use of symbolism. See "Despair" and "World on a Wire", two of Fassbinder's greatest pictures.