Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Written by Peter Märthesheimer, Pea Fröhlich, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Few rags-to-riches stories can boast cynicism, compassion, comedy, hopelessness and hellbent ambition like The Marriage of Maria Braun, the story of one woman’s desperate struggle to prosper in the ruins of post-war Germany while awaiting the return of her soldier husband.
Maria Braun got to spend “half a day, one night” married to her husband Hermann before the war split them up, and the ceremony foreshadows the embattled relationship to come: bombs falling, buildings crumbling, the debris flying while they stand in the midst of it all as a bureaucrat marries them. Earthshaking destruction threatens to cut the ceremony short, but they wrestle the fleeing officiator to the ground and hold him there until he scrawls a signature making it official.
The Marriage of Maria Braun is a love story besieged by grim realities. While we watch Maria make do in dire circumstances, we watch Germany do the same. Bomb-sized holes in walls connect rooms in apartments, valuables are bartered for firewood, clearing streets of rubble is a national pastime, and Germans scrap on the floor to get their hands on discarded cigarette butts from U.S. soldiers.
Depressing to behold, but Fassbinder is a pessimistic older relative with a wry sense of humor and a heart of gold. The Marriage of Maria Braun is stark viewing, but even in dark circumstances there’s never an ounce of self-pity to be traced in Fassbinder’s characters and their interactions. Instead, you find small acts of irreverence for authority figures, and kindness for flawed people doing what they can for those they care about. Case in point: Maria Braun.
Hanna Schygulla delivers a towering performance as Braun, a femme fatale trying to claw the pieces of her life together. Smoldering, icy, seductive, aloof, charming, cruel, Braun’s a character for the ages, and it takes both subtle nuance and strong commitment to realize the kaleidoscope of a performance Schygulla is tasked with. Most of what Braun gets up runs the gamut from mean to murderous, but you’re with her every step of the way. An original anti-hero in every sense, a feminist tale of a woman’s rejection of every institution that would either reject or entrap her, but ultimately just a tale of an indomitable human spirit, for better or worse.
It does also offer the melodramatic elements that are inherent to Fassbinder’s work, revealing a tender core at the heart of The Marriage of Maria Braun. The times you get a peek at it, it’s almost overwhelming, and these moments sparkle amidst the bitter cynicism that governs.
An incredible portrait of one person’s hellbent work to endure their circumstance, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a moving joy throughout, where Schygulla’s tour-de-force performance is the centerpiece of a cultural dissection that boasts heart, muscle, and guts.
Mikkel Frederiksen 