Portrait of a Post-War Psyche Proves Marathon Mini-Series

It is perhaps ironic that Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz opens with a man's release from prison, and chronicles the difficulty he encounters in adjusting to the outside world. After taking part in a 15-hour marathon showing of the 1979 made-for-TV miniseries, one can certainly relate to protagonist Franz Biberkopf's temporary detachment from reality.

John Gianvito, guest curator of the Harvard Film Archive, must have recognized that an all-night showing of the English-subtitled German classic would be a little intimidating to audiences. In his introductory speech, Gianvito jokingly asked the 50 audience members assembled whether they were feeling tired yet. He also mercifully scheduled breaks every four hours during the showing of the movie, and had assistants selling coffee and food in the adjacent auditorium. "It's worth it" to remain through the entire film, he reminded the audience, in order "to reach that amazing two-hour dream sequence at the end if you're not all hallucinating yourselves by that time."

In spite of its admittedly imposing length, Berlin Alexanderplatz manages to maintain an audience's attention, mainly by presenting a superbly crafted plot and highly symbolic cinematography. The film, composed of 13 parts and an epilogue, details Biberkopf's unsuccessful attempts to lead an honest and "decent" life following his release. It is simultaneously a story of failed and successful relationships and occupations, flirtations with Nazi sentiments, dealings with villainous small-time gangsters and bouts with alcoholism and insanity.

One would presume that, in any film of this length, a certain degree of repetition of plot developments and themes is inevitable. In fact, since Berlin Alexanderplatz deals as much with psychological devastation as it does with romance and criminal intrigue, it is to be expected that the protagonist should, in proper Freudian fashion, relive certain events of his life over and over again, seeking control over events otherwise relegated to the unchangeable past. Fassbinder brutally exploits the technique of flashback in scenes in which Biberkopf recalls the murder of his girlfriend. Fassbinder offers different voice-overs in each reenactment, which appears in each of the 13 segments. It gets very tedious watching the same clip no less than 14 times, and the often-worthwhile meanings contained within the voice-overs are unfortunately lost when the audience tunes out these segments of the film.

The voice-overs themselves also sometimes make the mistake of equating randomness with profundity. In some cases Fassbinder's commentary succeeds in placing the events of the film in a broader historical context, offering statistics describing unemployment and death within 1920s Germany, or metaphors relating earlier events to the action currently taking place. In other situations, though, the statements are so unrelated to the plot that they degenerate into non sequiturs, eliciting only confused laughter from the audience. Many of Fassbinder's visual and aural techniques also fail precisely because they try so hard to be profound and meaningful: one can't help but wonder, for instance, whether there is supposed to be some deeper meaning to the playing of Janis Joplin's "Me and My Bobby McGee" during certain scenes in Biberkopf's dream sequence.

Having noted the overly-abstruse parts of the film, one is still able to appreciate the magnificence of the reminder of its efforts. Perhaps the most startling of Berlin Alexanderplatz's metaphors is the relation of the murder and mayhem within Biberkopf's life to the carnage within a slaughterhouse; although this parallel is explored in earlier parts of the film as well, it finds its most successful expression in Biberkopf's psychotic hallucinations. In one particular scene, the nude bodies of Biberkopf and his lover Mieze are tied to an assembly line, and sliced open as though they are cattle. In a similar part of the dream sequence, the still-living bodies of all of Biberkopf's acquaintances are piled in a bloody heap in a white-lit chamber. Biberkopf is led to join the orgy, reflecting the way in which he eventually broke his oath of decency and degenerated into a life of criminality.

The film is also not without its lighter moments. Fassbinder has remarked that Biberkopf has an "unshakable faith in the good side of people," and the women he attracts to him are generally reflective of this disposition. In one particularly funny and touching scene, Biberkopf seduces Cilly, one of the many women who wander into and out of his life, by sharing a pair of boots with her: they are big enough for the two of them to wear together, he says, and proves it. The character of Frau Bast (Brigitte Mira), the nosy landlady, also adds comic relief to the tensions of the film: she is the woman consistently and rudely locked out during Biberkopf's romantic interludes.

Fassbinder lends the most charming touch to Biberkopf's life, though, with the addition of Mieze, a girlfriend almost radiant in her innocence. Her devotion to Biberkopf is reflected in her willingness to prostitute herself so that she can afford his little extravagances, including liquor and a pet canary. Fassbinder ingeniously uses lighting techniques so as to make Mieze appear to glow in every scene, and this luminescence is especially effective when compared to the dank atmosphere of the rest of the film. Even some of the periodic "quotation" screens which accompany the film refer to the charms of the young lover: "The girl is so gentle it is unbelievable." The quotations also remark that, under Mieze's influence, Biberkopf's apartment has begun to look like the room of a young girl, with flowers and bows everywhere. Not surprisingly, the apartment regains its former filthiness soon after the death of Mieze, at the hands of the gangster Reinhold.

It is easier to understand Biberkopf's hallucinatory insanity, and the symbolism of his dreams, when one considers his illness in the context of the brilliance extinguished by Reinhold's murder of Mieze. In perhaps the most subtly metaphorical of the dream sequences, Biberkopf ventures into the woods where he and Mieze used to go, not far from where her body was later found. On this trip, however, with Mieze dead, all the birds are caged, captive like the canary which once lived in the lovers' apartment.

Fassbinder remarked in 1980 that Berlin Alexanderplatz, while offering an insight into the social psychology leading up to the Second World War, simultaneously issues a warning to complacent audiences. He maintains that fascist ideas may take root just as easily in post-1945 democracies, born out of modern-day attitudes, traumas and decadence no different from those which Franz Biberkopf faced in 1920s Germany. Despite the minor flaws and over-exuberances of his technique, Fassbinder succeeds in encapsulating the attitudes and psychologies of the Weimar Republic in the life of a single common man. Reaching even greater brilliance, he then turns this depiction outward again, as his metaphors for the inevitable injury of loved ones resound with a universal application.