Die Ehe der Maria Braun
After this, I saw one more Fassbinder film but couldn’t really concentrate on it. The impression “Maria Braun” made one me is rather difficult to put into words, and I am fully aware that I might not do the film justice here, because of my personal bias.
I don’t know whether I can judge the film at all. In terms of style, I am a much bigger fan of “Katzelmacher”, in which clarity and the Ozu-like rigid camera prevail. I liked that a lot and I find it perfectly fitting for “Katzelmacher”. “Maria Braun”, in comparison to that, is nothing all that special, or so I feel. It’s a typical auteur film mainly interesting for its story, the way the actors interact with each other and the message of the film. “Maria Braun” is supposed to be a portrait of the German woman after WW2, and even though I am not sure if it is an adequate, let alone representative one, I am quite smitten with her.
Indeed, Hanna Schygulla does a wonderful job at portraying the possibly most interesting female character I have seen in a film for… how long? I suppose the last woman is Hildy in “His Girl Friday”, but that is a screwball comedy. It’s not comparable to the depth at which Maria Braun is portrayed. Since the whole film is about her, we were able to see many facets of her character: The woman who is willing to do anything to achieve her happiness but ultimately is unable to. She is strong and weak at the same time, and the love she shows to her husband is very girlish and devoted yet modern and . The most interesting is the way she treats her lovers: Clearly she shows affection to them, but when it comes to her husband, she is amazingly ruthless towards anybody who could potentially want any harm to Hermann. She even goes as far as to say that she wanted her child to be named Hermann – that is so emancipated and devout at the same time. It stands for everything Maria Braun is, the woman who wears way too elegant clothes for the time while carrying a board with her husbands name.
I am just as much in love Hanna Schygulla as the rest of the world, and for me, she is going to be Maria Braun forever. Although I want to watch “Lili Marleen” and a million other Fassbinder films very much, I have a feeling that this film will have a special place.