"The Merchant of Four Seasons," another superb Fassbinder

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film, this one from 1972 and, of course, featuring his usual troupe. As I've said in the past, part of the wonder one feels watching his films is the reoccurrence of familiar faces, the faithful wife in one film convincingly is portrayed by an actress who just as truthfully plays a prostitute in the next.
This film shows, through the unusual (for Fassbinder) device of repeated flashback, the price a young many pays for his individualism.
Against the wishes of his mother, the protagonist eschews furthering his education for a stint in the Foreign Legion, during which service he sees combat.
Returning home, he becomes a policeman but soon is fired. He then, much to the horror of his bourgeois extended family, becomes a fruit peddler, pushing his cart from square to square.
His wife, meanwhile, helps him at his business but because of increasing estrangement, begins to distance herself.
From here, the situation continues to spiral but with an unusual effect upon the "hero."
As is typical with Fassbinder, one is left not with easy answers or a strong feeling of what the director is trying to "tell" us but rather feeling that we have gotten to know a human being and the figures that revolve around their lives. More importantly, the complexity of those lives---the hidden pressures, needs, and desires---are revealed not in their substance but in their impact: the viewer must make up his mind what may have caused behaviors.
Fassbinder seems to say that humans are extremely mysterious beings and don't expect him to destroy that by creating a false, easily understood universe.
(Beware of what you read of this film: I've seen several reviews [including in the NYT!) wherein the plot erroneously is described.)

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Topic - "The Merchant of Four Seasons," another superb Fassbinder - tinear 07:47:24 03/21/07 (0)

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