Though Pioneers in Ingolstadt remains theatrical in its turn of phrase, that phrasing is not too far removed from Fassbinder's typical mix of philosophic wistfulness and pragmatic bluntness. Add to this Fleißer's interest in unbalancing accepted power dynamics and structural gender imbalance and it's no wonder Fassbinder was attracted to her work, nor that the resulting adaptation bears his mark as well as it does.
With a little more clarity in the transfer here (after Das Kaffeehaus' blurred taped-off-tv-in-the-70s-and-uploaded-onto-YouTube look) it really feels like we're back in the fold. Hannah Schygulla is again radiant. Irm Hermann once more hard-nosed. Harry Bär is handsomely indolent. Gunther Kaufmann is charismatic beefcake. Together they transcribe the scattergun scenes of soldiers flooding into a small provincial town in peacetime. They're there to repair a bridge, but their presence disrupts the local economy, setting many of the town's women out in the night time parks to "service" the town's visitors. Schygulla's Berta isn't like those other girls though, and she falls for Bär's Karl, who is like the other soldiers but she doesn't want to believe it.
The concept of our ability to will our hopes into existence hangs heavy on the material. The characters pronounce their truths with forthright apathy (very Fassbinder) and still manage to twist these truths into what they want to hear. Karl says he's just like all the other soldiers (and he is) and Berta assures him he is not. Berta says she's not like all the other girls (and with Hermann's Alma as the "easy" template, she is not) and Karl assures her that she is. They of course both find out that the truth is the truth. Willing something to be doesn't make it so.
This wilful misinterpretation of relationships, which Berta happily misconstrues as love, is cut through with life's harder (actual) truths. There is a pecking order. The sergeants are at the top (despite their self-deluding stupidity) and the pioneers are at the bottom. Businessmen rule over sergeant's, who rule over businessmen's sons. And everyone rules over the women. Only Alma, who bought wholeheartedly into the commodification of sex (and suffers ostracism because of it, not that she cares), navigates this pecking order with any success.
So, like I said, this is Fassbinder through and through. And it is good to be back. Something about his ability to peel back two or three layers of society to lay bare the structural inequalities and to do so without coming across as entirely polemic, gets to me. I'm entranced by his knack for humanising theoretical struggles without actually dramatising them. It's such an indefinable skill. The case in point here is how he handles the play's emotional climax, Berta and Karl's consummation and farewell. Post-deed, she arranges herself and stares off into the distance. He enquires. She looks pensive and says, "I feel we've forgotten something important..."
"We forgot love."
That's intellectually and emotionally gutting, right there. That's Fassbinder. That's why I'm back here.
Next up: Bremen Freedom...
This post contributes to Director Focus: Rainer Werner Fassbinder II.
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