MovieChat Forums > Welt am Draht (1973) Discussion > Sci-fi on a budget

Sci-fi on a budget

posted 11 years ago by Buckaroo-Robot-Monster
2 replies | jump to latest

I like sci-fi on a budget. Alexander Kluge has a pair of funny sci-fi, political, economic comedies that set the record for being deliberately low budget.

Fassbinder does an O.K. job finding some modern buildings. In fact, I like his crazy motorcycle helmet with the wires sticking out.

Don't compare this movie to more current movies that have CGI. The best Fassbinder can do is put some weird camera effects in when the simulated world is "reconstructing" itself. You see, the simulated world has no "edge" - it just has places where everything freezes up until some new scenery has been generated. Fred is just barely aware that his world does this. Fred is strong enough to be a bit immune to some of this.

[–] liscarkat-2 10 years ago

One of the things that makes this movie good is that there are no special effects. People and things just aren't there any more, which is much more psychologically interesting than if we had to sit through a million-dollar CGI sequence showing how they disappeared.

[–] EndOfRoad 9 years ago

It gets to the core of the phenomena without making their visual presentation too flashy.
The Matrix trilogy is a good example of how a bigger budget can produce too much style and too little content.

'Welt am Draht' was a refreshing experience. In tone and atmosphere, it reminded me a lot of 'Solaris'.