Some viewers and reviewers find Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) to be something of a bore. Certainly the characters are not ones that most of us would choose to socialize with for an evening. It was the film that first brought Fassbinder to international attention, however, and I found it intriguing and, even, educational in a twisted kind of way.

Historical Background: The irony inherent in the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder is that he wants to extemporize on the nature of human relationships despite the fact that his own relationships were characterized by bitterness, rage, jealousy and abuse. Fassbinder’s bitterness and cynicism was both political and personal in nature. Like a lot of Germans born after World War II, Fassbinder was pained by the guilt associated with the War and the concentration camps and could not understand how his parents’ generation could have let such atrocities take place. He felt that the German middle class had not truly reformed but had merely substituted the rebuilding effort for the war effort. German pragmatism, in his view, still took precedence over attention to the emotional and spiritual needs of young people and family. Fassbinder developed a hostile streak and suffered depression, turning to drug and alcohol use for solace. He was bisexual, though mostly gay, and ran through a string of transient relationships. Fassbinder felt that genuine “love” did not exist and that marriage was merely an institutional device to saddle adults with responsibilities. His films often revealed a cynicism about the authenticity of human relationships and many have nihilistic endings in which one or more of the principal characters die or sink into despair. Fassbinder committed suicide in 1982 at just 39 years of age.

We don’t usually turn to a man whose own personal life was a manifest catastrophe for advice or wisdom about the nature of human relationships. More typically, when we are trying to improve ourselves or learn about some aspect of living or relationships, we look first for positive role models – people who have been there and done that successfully. Alternatively, we might look for guidance from someone who once had the same problem that we’re trying to cope with – such as anger management or a drug problem – but who overcame the problem. Yet, there is something to be said for the value of negative role models as well – where one learns by observation what not to do or what kinds of approaches to life lead only to bitter tears. In my opinion, much of Fassbinder’s oeuvre has to be approached in that way, most especially his misanthropic view of human relations and his misogynistic view of women.

Why bother with Fassbinder’s work at all? Well, despite his cynical views, he has that artist’s propensity for brutal honesty. His views are not so much false as they are incomplete truths. The essence of Fassbinder’s worldview might be summed up as:

1. People are no damn good.
2. Women, especially, are no damn good.
3. People need one another, but their relationships, in the end, become struggles for power and control, leading to bitterness and hatred.

This is a gloomy vision, but by isolating the dark side of human nature, Fassbinder reveals it in all of its ignominy, without sugarcoating. We can learn about the worst of the potential pitfalls of human relations and possibly thereby learn how to minimize and evade such traps. Fassbinder’s message is one that not all viewers will care to be exposed to or able to handle. I wouldn’t especially recommend this film for young, impressionable minds still in the process of formulating their basic feelings and viewpoints about life and relationships, but, for a psychologically sophisticated audience, there can be a payoff. I might add as well that Fassbinder does interweave some worthy admonitions – against bigotry, homophobia, and exploitation – amidst the nihilism.

The Story: Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) is a highly successful fashion designer, living in pampered luxury. Twice married, the self-absorbed and rather caustic Petra lost her first husband in an automobile accident (four months before giving birth to a daughter by him) and divorced her second husband some time in the recent past. Petra is waited upon by a slavish personal secretary, Marlene (Irm Hermann), whom she subjects to verbal abuse and who never speaks. The submissive Marlene prepares meals, serves tea, opens doors, takes dictation, types, and draws clothing designs while being continuously harangued with demands from the cruel Petra.

Petra receives a visit from a friend, Sidonie (Katrin Schaake), who is curious about the recent divorce. Petra attributes the falling out to her having become more successful than her husband, who then tried to compensate for no longer being the primary breadwinner by becoming more of a brute in bed. Petra had finally reached the point of being disgusted with him and had demanded the divorce.

Sidonie asks Petra if she may introduce a young friend, Karin Thimm (Hanna Schygulla), to her. Karin aspires to a career as a model and Petra could arrange training for her and a start. Karin is introduced and turns out to be an attraction young woman of twenty-three from a working class background and a rather difficult family life as a child. Her father, in fact, had ultimately killed her mother and then hung himself.

Petra is irresistibly attracted to Karin, who is bisexual, and, with Karin’s husband conveniently out of the picture in Australia, Petra invites Karin to move in with her, which she does. Although Petra tries to impress upon Karin such convenient ideals as responsibility, respect, and humility (hoping to encourage a degree of deference on Karin’s part), Karin proves unexpectedly independent-minded, willful, and, sometimes, even insolent. When, for example, Petra reminds her to watch what she eats by suggesting, “Your figure is all you’ve got”, Karin responds, “If you think so.” Although Petra has the power advantages of money, success, and status, it is she who desires Karin’s love while Karin is somewhat indifferent toward Petra. All of the relationship between Petra and Karin plays out in the presence and under the watchful gaze of Marlene.

The relationship between Karin and Petra begins to unravel. Petra demands to know Karin’s whereabouts during the previous night when she was out until six in the morning. Karin responds with details of a one-nighter with a black serviceman, who she describes as exceptionally well-endowed. Karin is fit to be tied, partly in general and partly out of racist prejudices. Karin’s husband comes to Europe and Karin decides she will leave Petra and go to her husband. There is a heated exchange in which Petra denounces Karin as a whore and dishonest rat. Petra wonders why Karin hadn’t simply worked the streets, to which Karin deftly responds, “It was less strenuous with you.” Karin is having none of it and will not be manipulated into compliance with Petra’s demands or wishes. She even manages to leave with a plane ticket and cash, courtesy of Petra.

Petra is distraught by the breakup with Karin and her emotional pain erupts, with the aid of too much alcohol, at her 35th birthday party, where Sidonie, Petra’s mother (Gisela Fackelday), and Petra’s teenage daughter, Gaby (Eva Mattes), are in attendance. Petra verbally abuses each in turn. Her abuse of Gaby is especially hard to watch, since the girl is presented as admiring her mother and desperately in need of her love and attention.

SPOILER AHEAD – SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH TO RETAIN THE SURPRISE OF THE UNEXPECTED ENDING

Petra finally sobers up, makes her apologies to her mother, and is left alone, once again, with Marlene. Petra feels that she’s learned a lesson. She only wanted to possess Karin, she opines, rather than truly loving her. She will turn over a new leaf – beginning with Marlene. She tells Marlene that they’ll start working as true partners. Marlene calmly packs her suitcase and leaves!

Themes: Fassbinder wastes no time, in this film, getting to his view of women. The opening credits run over a shot featuring a pair of cats lying about lazily on a set of stairs. We quickly understand that feline is a stand-in for feminine as the film cuts to Petra’s bedroom, where the lazy and self-indulgent title character is sleeping in late. We already know that Fassbinder is not a fan of women’s liberation (see The Marriage of Maria Braun) and he’s soon about the business of depicting lesbians as irrational men-haters. Petra explains to Sidonie the reasons for her divorce: “He stank like a man. The way men stink. What had once had its charms now turned my stomach and brought tears to my eyes.” Still, Fassbinder’s gun chamber isn’t empty. These bisexual women, Petra and Karin, not only dislike men but treat one another with equal contempt and cruelty. They will enslave one another given the opportunity. All of this would seem like a very unflattering reflection on women until one realizes that the relationship problems being depicted by Fassbinder are simply his own and not factually related to women collectively or women more than men.

Fassbinder does, however, have a couple of valid points to make in relation to female empowerment, in my opinion. Think, for a moment, on the implications of that phrase – “female empowerment.” For me, it’s a concept that evokes both positive and negative reaction. What I like about it is the suggestion that women have an equal claim to power as men. What I dislike about it is that the concept of power is inherently about some individuals dominating others. Power, by its very nature, is exploitive and anti-egalitarian. Whether it's women or men exercising power is less important to me than the freedom of the powerless from exploitation by the powerful. One person’s empowerment is another’s enslavement.

Another interesting point that Fassbinder makes in relation to power and women is to reflect on the variety of factors that confer a position of power. Some of the factors are obvious, such as wealth, status, and position. In personal relationships, such as marriages or gay partnerships, however, an even more crucial factor is who needs or loves or desires the other one the least. The need for love puts one in the subordinate position, subject to manipulation. To love is to make oneself vulnerable to domination. This is why Fassbinder believes that all relationships come down to power transactions.

No one will accuse Fassbinder of being an uncomplicated man. Despite his misogynistic prejudices against women in general and lesbians in particular, Fassbinder was a harsh critic of many kinds of bigotry, especially in relation to race and male homosexuality. In this film, he is at great pains to illustrate Petra’s prejudice in relation to black men. Even Karin resorts to a more subtle kind of racism by trying to mollify Petra with the suggestion that the black man she slept with had an intelligent “European” face.

Production Values: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant was based on a play written by Fassbinder by the same name. In adapting the play into a movie, Fassbinder made precious little concession to the special requirements or capabilities of cinema. The movie was made in very few takes. There are many very long unbroken sequences. The entire film is shot in one setting – Petra’s apartment, including a bedchamber and adjacent spaces. This method of filming does at least succeed in creating a claustrophobic feeling of confinement, illustrating with physicality the extent to which the various characters are locked into their self-serving and counterproductive modes of interaction. Whether it’s also entertaining cinema is a matter of some dispute.

One wall of Petra’s apartment is dominated by a gigantic Poussin mural showing a muscular nude male with visible genitalia, an attractive reclining odalisque at his feet, and a neglected child. The presence of the painting confers a sense of high drama to the proceedings. Naked mannequins are scattered all about, appearing in most of the individual frames, often in positions mirroring those of the characters. The women’s movements are choreographed to appear cold and calculated, like black widow spiders circling an ensnared mosquito. In one scene, when Petra is starting to fall for Karin, she moves close to Karin repeatedly and each time Karin moves a few steps away – like a prey scurrying from a predator.

The cinematography and set design, both provided by the highly regarded Michael Ballhaus (who worked with Fassbinder on many films), is beautiful to behold. It certainly doesn’t hurt that a gorgeous painting featuring brilliant reds provides the backdrop for many of the frames. The outrageous costumes are high camp and intriguing. There are clever mirror shots, shots between objects, and shots with horizontal shadows or the bars of the bed’s headboard to create a sense of imprisonment. Many of the frames have the appearance of a perfectly constructed display in the browsing window of an expensive shop. The soundtrack is an odd mix of pop tunes (especially The Platters hit Great Pretender) and opera arias (Verdi).

The all-female cast is headed by Margin Carstensen – easily the heart and soul of this film. She displays the courage to make her character brilliantly unsympathetic. Hanna Schygulla, who played Karin, was a Fassbinder regular, starring in Effi Briest (1974), The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979), and Lili Marleen (1981). She also appeared in La Nuit de Varennes in 1982. Eva Mattes was just an adolescent in this film but made a name for herself later as an adult actress in A Man Like Eva. Katrin Schaake, who played Sidonie von Grasenabb, later took a turn in What’s New, Pussycat? (1965). Irm Hermann was magnificent in this film as Petra’s secretary, Marlene, even without a single line of dialog. She serves as something of a surrogate for the viewer, being a mute observer herself. Hermann’s other credits include Effi Briest (1974) and Ali, Fear Eats the Soul (1974). The performances were all excellent – provided that you buy into Fassbinder’s concept for the film.

Bottom-Line: For the most part, this is not an especially difficult film. The themes are driven home, the motivations of the various characters are transparent, the symbolism is obvious, and the innuendos of dialog all too evident. Even the characters understand the eternal chase and the dance of dominance and submission. Nevertheless, the film provides insights into some of the uglier elements of human nature and relationships. Watching this film is a bit like a walk through the gloomy forest of human nature on a moonless night. The DVD includes two Fassbinder shorts called The City Tramp and The Little Chaos. There is also a commentary track, which is rather flat, monotone, and uninspired. The film is in German with English subtitles and has a running time of 125 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Germany:

The American Friend
Beyond Silence
The Blue Angel
Das Boot
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
Fitzcarraldo
Kings of the Road
M
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Metropolis
The Nasty Girl
Nosferatu
Pandora's Box
Run Lola Run
Stalingrad
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Threepenny Opera
The Tin Drum
Wings of Desire
Zentropa

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age