The Merchant of Four Seasons

O comerciante das quatro estações estreava há 50 anos no Festival de Veneza. Tento fugir da psicanalização dos autores frente suas obras de arte, mas tem coisas mais fortes, como não enxergar neste protagonista a autodestruição de Fassbinder como semente que acabaria com a própria vida no futuro? Box Versátil Novo Cinema Alemão.

why are you even alive little man?

Clearly an important film for Fassbinder as it marks the shift from his early films to his more mature style. The radically experimental style has started to fade and he's clearly committed to making intelligent, thoughtful films inside the bounds of more conventional structure. It's a good film that I felt little to no personal connection to.

I love the story. I hate the execution. I really just can't vibe with Fassbinder's television-soap-opera-unintentional-camp aesthetic. Fuck it.

(Rewatch) I think i actually maybe like this somewhat less than before. I find it surprising that Fassbinder took what was for him a long break before making this, because if anything it feels more rushed and sloppier than usual in nearly every sense, aesthetically and performance-wise. It's all very quintessentially typical Fassbinder on a thematic level, but basically in a lot of ways just feels like a warm-up for things he'd explore in much more depth later on, namely in Berlin Alexanderplatz

gross

Like the last film I watched, Deliverance, this has a traumatic experience that happens to a character who then proceeds to forget it ever happened. Apart from this deflating oddity, the rest of the film is quaintly good. Flat, static, and up-right, but still containing a working class married couple worth your investment.

Felt a bit tonally awkward at points, but overall enjoyable.

An uncomfortably awkward movie for reasons of sheer technicality. The whole film sounds as if it were overdubbed and everybody walks & talks like a strange cast of clumsy cyborgs. It's really hard to put into words and I may be the only one to be so disturbed by this, but it's really off-putting ... Maybe the international dubs fare better in this regard?

Finally, a Fassbinder that I might want to return to one day.

"A pivotal work in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's career because it was the first film he made after meeting and befriending his muse Douglas Sirk in 1971." - Ed Gonzalez

At the beginning this drama from Fassbinder, which touches on abuse, adultery, depression and alienation from ones family, does have awkward moments where the emotional affect is dampened by how the scene is played out, but as it continues it becomes a solid character portrayal and shows the ability of the director to create sympathy and interest in these characters regardless of their actions.

Good moments, but kinda corny sometimes, looking like a soap opera.

This strange psychodrama is the only Fassbinder movie I've seen which is so awkward it's actually awkward. It just didn't affect me as most of his films do. I think I got it but it seems a bit weak and out of focus to me.