Allegory?


I could be way off, but this is what I saw:

1. VV represents Germany. She is the Germany that was seduced by Goebbels's propaganda machine. She has become dependent on it.

2. Dr. Katz's clinic represents the corruption that continued in German government and society after the war. It became VV's new false god.

3. The Afro-American soldier represents a recurring theme in BRDT: the irony of Nazi Germany's effort to get rid of all "inferior" races, then being occupied and controlled by the ever-present non-Aryan.

4. The sports reporter represents a visitor from modern society who naively thinks he can change everything for the better just by taking an active interest. How easily he is seduced. What does a sports reporter know about such things, anyway?

5. The old couple were the Jews who had fallen victim to Nazi Germany. They were not addicts. They acted as signposts.

It seems to me that Fassbinder is always angry about what Germany (the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany))) had become and how it had deteriorated. It became addicted to false ideals, it suffered tremendous guilt, it tried to forge ahead without feeling sorry for itself and without dwelling in the past, and it prostituted itself and continued to act against its ideals so that it might rebuild and eventually pay its debts and maybe even get ahead of a place it had not been since before WWI. As it struggled to keep its head up, it poisoned the minds of its citizens with its continued hypocrisy, and perpetuated the deterioration it tried to alleviate.

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It makes sense. but keep in mind this guy Fassbinder was also known to be a hell raiser, cocaine addicted, had sex with both his female and male assistants, got into several fistfights and died from drug overdose of cocaine and heroin ["speedballing"]. A brilliant film maker and a total jerk.

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That's a fair conclusion, but that doesn't invalidate what he felt about Germany.

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Dr. Katz's clinic represents the corruption that continued in German government and society after the war. It became VV's new false god.

I agree in part with this aspect of your analysis. Dr Katz's clinic gave their clients drugs to make them forget, wherever it be Veronika easing the pain of a failed film career and the Jewish couple's holocaust experience. However, the drugs were only escalating the clients' problems. This reflected immorality in Germany post-WWII, a country attempting to forget its Nazi past yet still suffers from problematic aspects which are either unacknowledged or denied. Hence the pessimistic ending.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

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All the women - Veronika, Maria Braun and Lola - represent the body of Germany, I think. To survive Germany adapts to international business and commerce and loses its heart and sense of self along the way (Maria Braun). Or it becomes like an addict giving itself away for the price of peace but belonging to another (Veronika Voss). Or it becomes a prostitute in the post-WW2 market whilst feigning to be good domestically (Lola).

I wonder about the black American GI who turns up in all three films but has a different role in each. In Maria Braun he was a kind lover who was murdered. In Veronika Voss he is a side-kick to a murderous doctor. In Lola he frequents the brothel. He's a comment on Germany's relationship with its NATO allies and America in particular but the relationship seems quite complex.

I give my respect to those who have earned it; to everyone else, I'm civil.

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