"Lola" (1981) is one of the better Rainer Werner Fassbinder films, and has the super-saturated colors and often odd camera angles that are a hallmark of "the New German Cinema." The 15 1/2-hour "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is the consensus Fassbinder masterpiece (proclaimed by Susan Sontag as the best screen adaptation of a major novel ever, in any language). Of the 40 movies that Fassbinder directed (along with 30+ stage productions) before dying at the age of 37 in 1982, some consider In the Year of 13 Moons his normal feature-length movie masterpiece, while others give that accolade to the third part of his trilogy about post-WWII Germany, Veronika Voss. I find both of those movies hard to tolerate, let alone like, both for reasons of structure and ultra-depressing content.

For me, Fassbinder's masterpiece was the early (in his middle period) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. I prefer the other two movies from the BDR (the Federal Republic of German, i.e., West Germany) trilogy, "The Marriage of Maria Braun" (the first of the new German cinema productions to turn a profit) and "Lola." They are both color-filled, have compelling performances by their leads, and unfold more-or-less linearly.

It is clear that Veronika Voss and Maria Braun are the main characters in the other two movies. It is far less clear that Lola (played by Barbara Sukowa) is the main character in the movie that bears her name. From the interview on the Criterion disc with Peter Märthesheimer (1937-2004), who wrote the screenplays for all three movies in the trilogy, I learned that he and Fassbinder's usual editor, Juliane Lorenz, thought that the city's new building commission chief von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is the movie's protagonist. Fassbinder wanted the bordello singer (and prostitute) Lola to be more of the focus (and, according to Märthesheimer flew into a rage and made some cuts that Märthesheimer deplored).

Lola is kept by big-time builder Schukert (Mario Adorf) who has the mayor and building commission in his pocket. The very correct new building commission chief surprises him by suggesting adding three more stories (each of which will generate an additional million marks of profit for Schukert) to the proposed new development.

Von Bohm has a devoted secretary and a very competent housekeeper, who just happens to be Lola's mother (Karin Baal) and who is raising Lola's illegitimate daughter. Lola is intrigued by Schukert's description of the new official as an old-fashioned, very proper man who kisses ladies' hands. She wants that treatment (and definitely does not get it from the very vulgar Schukert) and bets him 30 cases of champagne that she can get him to kiss her hand in public.

That turns out to be very easy with a change of wardrobe and demeanor, and we hear no more of the cases of champagne (though I'm sure Shukert paid off with a laugh). More than kissing her hand, she gets von Bohm (a widower) to fall in love with her. Schukert (somehow!) does not learn this from his many spies, and after von Bohm has submitted his approval of Schukert's big project, von Bohm is brought to the night club/bordello where Lola is the star performer. His anti-militarist activist underling Esslin (Matthias Fuchs), who plays drums at the club, not Schukert gets von Bohm to the locale, where he is shocked to see members of the local elite, and more shocked when the features singer comes out...

Perhaps a movie with a nightclub singer named Lola would have suggested "The Blue Angel" to me, if I had not already known that "Lola" started as an attempt to update "The Blue Angel" to the 1950s. The very proper von Bohm does not enter Lola's professional milieu until an hour and 18 minutes into the (1:55) movie. And not being a teacher, he is not there to check up on his students. He also is not turned into a prop in the singer's show after surrendering his self-image to the woman who entrances him. I won't reveal how the relationships develop after his initial flight from the spectacle of Lola (who continues her song in a masochistic frenzy...)

The title role is tripartite: the demure upper-class lady whom von Bohm sings with in church and takes walks with, the chanteuse, and the prostitute. Barbara Sukowa is excellent as Lola and has a far better voice than Marlene Dietrich (but is not given any song to match "Falling in Love Again"). Sukowa played Hannah in Schlöndorff's adaptation of Max Frisch's Homo Faber "Voyager (1991, in English, costarring Sam Shepard) and Rosa Luxemburg in Margarethe von Trotta's biopic (Fassbinder was reading a script for a movie about Luxemburg by Peter Märthesheimer when he died: talk about intertextualities!)

The role of von Bohm does not go into the orgy of debasement/abjection of Emil Janning in "The Blue Angel." Armin Mueller-Stahl (best-known here for his part in "Shine") manages to plot and to maintain his dignity, much as in his outstanding performance in Schlöndorff's The Ogre (the role in which I most recently say him; he was also the rather differing patriarchs in The House of Spirits and "Avalon"). His gripping debut in English was as Jessica Lange's father in "The Music Box" (1989). Karin Baal also has considerable dignity as von Bohm's housekeeper.

Helga Feddersen provides comic relief as von Bohm's secretary, Frau Hettich. Mario Adorf is convincing as the cynical builder and Matthias Fuchs as the complex Esslin.
Günther Kaufmann (one of Fassbinder's former lovers) turns up in each of the trilogy's parts as an African American GI. (Trivia on top of trivia: Kaufmann is the man with whom Fassbinder spent his wedding night instead of with his bride, actress Ingrid Caven...)

The cinematography by Xaver Schwarzenberger is bold, not just heightening that of the 1950s Douglas Sirk soap operas with which Fassbinder was besotted, but the movies of Pedro Almodóvar(!). There is a lot of red throughout the movie, and von Bohm is given a very pink bedroom.

The story is not difficult to follow (in contrast to many other piece of New German Cinema!). And back story is filled in (very untypically). There is not a sermon until the 1:36 mark.

The Criterion disc (part of a four-disc BDR trilogy package) includes a commentary that provides an introduction to Fassbinder's work in general that rarely relates to what is on the screen (that is, to "Lola"). It also includes two very interesting 2003 interviews: a 20-minute one with Barbara Sukowa speaking in English about working for Fassbinder, first on "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and then "Lola" and on her character, and a 32-minute one in German with Peter Märthesheimer, who produced a number of early Fassbinder movies as well as writing screenplays for the BRD trilogy and for the Rosa Luxemburg project (he knows how far Fassbinder got in reading it—page 12—because the script was open with drops of blood in Fassbinder's death bed). BTW, Märthesheimer regarded "Ali" as Fassbinder's most beautiful film and, despite the ravages of drug abuse on the director (as well as the title character!) "Veronika Voss" to be Fassbinder's best film... and the one from the trilogy with the least changes from Märthesheimer's script, though he thought the changes Fassbinder made in "Maria Braun" were improvements.

I wish there was also a retrospect from Armin Mueller-Stahl, who is fluent in English.

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I didn't realize that the "Lola" in the database was Jacques Demy's. Aside from consideration of length, I couldn't bear to watch "Veronika Voss" again (see Metalluk's generous (at 3-stars) review at http://www.epinions.com/content_164193668740 and more enthusiastic (4-star) one of "The Marriage of Maria Braun" at http://www.epinions.com/content_147824545412.

The fourth disc includes three documentaries: "I Don't Just Want You to Love Me" (Ich will nicht nur, daß ihr mich liebt), an hour-and-a-half survey of Fassbinder's career; "Life Stories: A Conversation with R.W. Fassbinder," a 49-minute interview with Fassbinder, dating from 1978; and "Dance with Death" (Tanz mit dem Tod), a one-hour documentary about German actress Sybille Schmitz, the inspiration for the character Veronika Voss.


Recommended:
Yes

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