She’s an attractive woman, Hanna Schygulla is (as the title character), and that’s only one of the things she uses to get ahead in the post-World War II mess of West Germany. Maria’s dogged pursuit of her goals, flirting with other men before returning to her pre-War husband (who returns unexpectedly even after she’d given up on him), makes her a potent symbol of Germany in the period, and this film thus functions as something of an allegory. Certainly those closing scenes, soundtracked by the insistent voice of a football commentator narrating a successful German game, drives that home. It may not be Fassbinder’s most flashy film, not the one perhaps with the greatest cult credentials, but it’s a wonderfully resonant piece, I think, underpinned by a great central performance by Schygulla.
FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder | Writers Peter Märthesheimer and Pea Fröhlich | Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus | Starring Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Löwitsch, Ivan Desny | Length 115 minutes || Seen at a friend’s home (DVD), London, Sunday 18 March 2018 (and before that on VHS in Wellington, November 1997, and at university in Wellington, March 2000)