Fontane - Effi Briest

A big disappointment, I couldn't get into it at all. It's both overwritten and underdone as an adaptation, almost like a massive, impenetrable block of raw text. I haven't read the novel but after seeing how little an awesome director like Fassbinder was able to get from it, I don't think I will. One of Fassbinder's weakest films.

Honestly, half the voiceovers would be enough; when it's retelling entire segments of the novel while Fassbinder just films Schygulla walking down some stairs, this verges on self-parody. Fortunately, the rest of it is good enough to outweigh those bits; what looks like it should be a big melodrama keeps getting undercut by Fassbinder's complete unsentimentality about it. Everyone's powerful, nobody's responsible. Thoughts and prayers.

Beautiful b/w cinematography. But RWF's intentions to detach the viewer, so they rationally instead of emotionally connect with the material, are pushed so far I couldn't engage in any way with it.

Concerned bth w/ friction btwn manifest & latent content, & more importantly the social determination of the individual. Woolf tells us that an author is like a spider's web attached at all four corners, & here societal pressures are paralysis, however irrational & seemingly avertable. In other words, contra Thatcher: "there are no individuals; only society." That said, these are ideas better explored elsewhere by RWF, and this is very uninteresting apart from the choreography & b&w photography.

a decent movie but why bother film the novel when you don't do a "cinematic" movie but a theatrical one? it is too repetitive...

Stunning cinematography coupled with a great cast - this film is beautiful and thought-provoking. A tale of guilt, companionship, and the endless complications that arise... If Hanna Schygulla alone doesn't make this film worth watching for you, then what are you doing with your life? Get outta here.

never ending saga!!!!goes on and on and on and on...

Mindnumbingly boring (safe for some good technical work).