Love Is Colder Than Death

Fassbinder’s first is all style over substance, but the simplicity and nonchalance give it a coolness that many of its French New Wave influences try too hard for and completely miss. As such, the narrative thinness is easily overlooked, as the laid-back aesthetic, particularly that of the central trio walking down the street accompanied only by the sound of shoe on stone, is sufficiently entrancing.

Fassbinder making new wave flick. Hell ya

Reminds me of some of Godard's more gangster-film-influenced work, but Fassbinder deconstructs the genre even further to create a chilly and fascinating work. The characters are little more than avatars for aimless nihilism; they idle in Schygulla's apartment, kill strangers for no reason and generally reflect little humanity as the plot, thin as it is, progresses. While it's far from his best work, it's an interesting debut.

Utterly cool. Both completely breezy and yet also possessing this ability to render every scene as almost alien to you, or so self aware you can't help but love every subtle wink towards the camera. Its main strength may be its style, but when the style is so bold, distinct and captivating (well, for the most part anyway) it really doesn't matter for this film watcher. It may spend most of its time posing but the poses it striked were great.

First Fassbinder film that I’ve seen and I know that it’s not really an accurate example of his filmography, but it was still an interesting film. It’s clearly inspired by French gangster films and New Wave, but it has its own identity. It's quite sparse with dialogue and favours style over substance. There’s also some dry humor to spice things up.

Doesn’t exactly feel like a Fassbinder movie but it’s so cool like all his movies.

Satantango ripped this off

french new wave by Fassbinder. mediocre.

"Well Fassbinder would disagree with you about Kurt Raab, he put on his list..." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/05/episode-58-first-fassbinder-episode.html

Remarkably self-assured debut, but much too nouvelle vague for my tastes, not to mention totally lacking the sensitivity, empathy, and political and emotional insight of his later work. Nevertheless, Fassbinder's deconstruction of the gangster film genre has an impressive command of framing and [probably even more than Godard, et al.] of the rhythms of choreography, camera movement, and editing. Not really my thing.

Fassbinder's Bande-à-Part

Very self-conscious in its attempts to be a cool Nouvelle Vague gangster picture, but the stark black and white compositions are frequently beautiful, especially for a first film. And after watching a few of his films I'm coming to appreciate Fassbinder's apparently sharp eye for a great pair of tits. The women in his movies seem to always have amazing bodies, which is downright impressive for a gay man. Even if you think his movies are boring, they're always easy on the eye.

I like to try to give films I don't like but have had them recommended to me a good 30 minutes before abandoning them. I made it 20 minutes before abandoning this turgid tosh

Highly mannered and uneventful, almost in the sense that the characters are just models for a fashion show, but it's distinctly cool, the compositions are strong, and the sexual tension and air of betrayal makes the story effective. I can't say I loved it, or even that it's great, but for a first movie this is very solid. I might like it more if I revisit it.

Apart from the defiant and striking B&W cinematography, this has a lot of low-budget stigma to it. The technical side of this can be dismissed, but not the lack of creative substance and the awkward slow pacing. But it is rather cool and feels more of an examination of gangster films rather than an imitation.

"These disquieting moments evoke a strange and complex sexual relationship between the film's characters bound to end in ravishing betrayals." - Ed Gonzalez

Lot of Godard over here. But not so good as any of his golden period movies, of course. I agree with user flaneur, who said that there is "a lot of posing and trying to look cool". But I kinda like it, anyway.

Juvenile and amateurish. Very dated first effort from Fassbinder. Owes an obvious debt to the nouvelle vague and not in a good way. A lot of posing and trying to look cool. Skip it.