...and the artsy-fartsy results are just as ridiculous as one would expect.
With his soft, fat behind squeezed everlastingly into tight white pants, the main character, Franz, is played by the film's director, and while Rainer Werner Fassbinder is certainly ugly enough to convince as a thug pimp, this is no RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER. Not for a single instant does the film persuade the viewer that he or she is peeking into the lives and world of real criminals. Instead, the impression is that of a particularly amateurish Andy Warhol abomination, or of what might have been Ed Wood's nouvelle vague magnum opus.
Pretty boy Bruno (Ulli Lommel) is supposed to be a psychopathic killer but exudes not the slightest air of threat, and for most of the movie, he sports a fedora which makes him look almost as laughable as CONTEMPT's Michel Piccoli in his fedora and bath towel (almost, I say, because it's hard to beat the king). Like Franz, Bruno is frequently seen with a cigarette dangling from in his mouth - "Bogarting" (along with a laconic affect) is a sign of toughness in European cinematic culture, a tradition which Woody Allen parodied so amusingly in EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX.
As for Johanna (Hanna Schygulla), Franz's prostitute girlfriend - she has a nude scene or two, but don't get your hopes up.
LOVE's silly scenes are legion. The perfunctory shootouts are more over-the-top than William Shatner getting hit by a phaser blast, and the police's idea of stakeout is to put a crowd of plainclothes officers at the entrance of a bank. A Turkish pimp isn't alerted to the fact that his life is in danger when Bruno, complete with fedora and sunglasses, enters a café in broad daylight (the perfect time and place, of course, to stage a hit), with his hand concealed under the lapel of his overcoat, and takes a seat directly facing his intended victim; and Bruno himself, again in broad daylight - and again in his fedora - doesn't think it unwise to piggyback a dying man through the streets looking for a place to finish him off.
LOVE reminded me of a designer jeans ad which I once saw in the New York City subway system. Under a row of male models striking fashionista "tough guy" poses, a joker had used a magic marker to scrawl the words, THIS ADVERTISEMENT EXPLOITS A**HOLES.
A**holes! That's one more star than I give to LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH, firstly because of IMDb's guidelines, and secondly because the film's subtitled version allowed me to fast forward through its lengthy silences, which are even more worthless than the dialogue, without feeling that I'd missed anything.
With his soft, fat behind squeezed everlastingly into tight white pants, the main character, Franz, is played by the film's director, and while Rainer Werner Fassbinder is certainly ugly enough to convince as a thug pimp, this is no RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER. Not for a single instant does the film persuade the viewer that he or she is peeking into the lives and world of real criminals. Instead, the impression is that of a particularly amateurish Andy Warhol abomination, or of what might have been Ed Wood's nouvelle vague magnum opus.
Pretty boy Bruno (Ulli Lommel) is supposed to be a psychopathic killer but exudes not the slightest air of threat, and for most of the movie, he sports a fedora which makes him look almost as laughable as CONTEMPT's Michel Piccoli in his fedora and bath towel (almost, I say, because it's hard to beat the king). Like Franz, Bruno is frequently seen with a cigarette dangling from in his mouth - "Bogarting" (along with a laconic affect) is a sign of toughness in European cinematic culture, a tradition which Woody Allen parodied so amusingly in EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX.
As for Johanna (Hanna Schygulla), Franz's prostitute girlfriend - she has a nude scene or two, but don't get your hopes up.
LOVE's silly scenes are legion. The perfunctory shootouts are more over-the-top than William Shatner getting hit by a phaser blast, and the police's idea of stakeout is to put a crowd of plainclothes officers at the entrance of a bank. A Turkish pimp isn't alerted to the fact that his life is in danger when Bruno, complete with fedora and sunglasses, enters a café in broad daylight (the perfect time and place, of course, to stage a hit), with his hand concealed under the lapel of his overcoat, and takes a seat directly facing his intended victim; and Bruno himself, again in broad daylight - and again in his fedora - doesn't think it unwise to piggyback a dying man through the streets looking for a place to finish him off.
LOVE reminded me of a designer jeans ad which I once saw in the New York City subway system. Under a row of male models striking fashionista "tough guy" poses, a joker had used a magic marker to scrawl the words, THIS ADVERTISEMENT EXPLOITS A**HOLES.
A**holes! That's one more star than I give to LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH, firstly because of IMDb's guidelines, and secondly because the film's subtitled version allowed me to fast forward through its lengthy silences, which are even more worthless than the dialogue, without feeling that I'd missed anything.