Focus on R.W. FASSBINDER II: Satansbraten (1976)

Is it just me or is it inexplicable to open a comedy with a quote from Antonin Artaud? You remember him from Theatre in Trance, no?

He's pretty heavy. The 'Theatre of Cruelty' and all that.

Too much?

No?

What if this is the quote?

What differentiates
The heathens from us
Is the great resolve underlying
Their forms of belief
Not to think in human terms.
In this way, they are able to retain
The link with the whole of creation,
In other words, with the godhead.

                                                      - Antonin Artaud

You ready to chortle?

No?

Yeah, I guess it is a little heavy. But, hell, remember The Third Generation? That comedy about that time the left wing terrorists kidnapped that rich industrialist? When Fassbinder does comedy, it is black. Really black.

Here's it's even a little gothic.

Here there's a poet, Kurt Raab at his most batshit. He's struggling to make ends meet. He's supporting a demanding wife and a developmentally challenged, dead fly obsessed brother and a couple of fawning mistresses. Some of them give him the cash he needs to subsist/create. Others don't. So he kills them. And when the creative juices don't flow he starts appropriating work from his deceased forebears and, when he's called on it, he decides he'll just have to be the reincarnation of said poet.

Said poet's gay. No problem. He can go there to.

To say Satansbraten is off the wall is the grandest form of understatement. It works though, in a fucked up, what-the-hell-is-going-on-here kind of way. Everyone is enjoying the depravity, especially Margit Carstenen, who is cast (or at least made-up) against type and Raab, who is so well typecast that the role had to be created with his involvement. I can't admit to being the biggest fan of his work with Fassbinder but here he is absolutely in his element and it works a treat.

What exactly does it all mean? No fucking idea. I like the indulgence though, both for license afforded Fassbinder in making the film and for what the characters accept within the film. Everyone gets away with murder (sometimes literally). There's probably comment in just how much Raab's foibles are pandered to and how fawning the world of art appreciation can be. Even how far we'll step into the abyss before we actually think about what we're getting ourselves into. But when the goings on are as off the wall as this, it is hard to dig too deep.

It's not until the film's uproarious climax, when Fassbinder pulls out his Artaud quote again that one is shocked into trying to discern a point.

And I'm still at a loss.

Next up: The Stationmaster's Wife...

This post contributes to Director Focus: Rainer Werner Fassbinder II.