Enfant Terrible

Life and work in a state of constant frenzy. Director Oskar Roehler, arguably he himself an enfant terrible of German cinema, has crafted an uncompromising portrait of a director who left a deep mark in cinema history: Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Before dying at the age of 37, he had managed to finish more than 40 films. How was this even possible? In all graphic detail the film shows Fassbinders endless appetite for work, drugs, love and sex, the physical self-exploitation he put upon himself – and everyone involved. The resulting body of work remains unparalleled in its energy.

And the energy of the man stomped over others from the beginning – 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder takes the stage of Munich’s Antitheater in 1967 and takes over the production. Then he does one film after another, triumphant in Berlin and Cannes.

He quickly attracts a following and polarises again and again, just like this episodic film does – 
following its very own path with studio atmosphere and idiosyncratic lighting.

The dramaturgy of colour and lighting leans in directly into Fassbinder’s universe, and Oliver Masucci as Rainer Werner Fassbinder – a man of genius and transgression – gives one of the defining performances of his career, truly embodying the director.

Christoph Gröner