Director · Producer · 1940

Michael Fengler

3: briefs
13:00: average
39 min: in total

On film.briefs3

Gods of the Plague

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Michael Fengler · 1969

Gods of the Plague is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1970 black-and-white drama, co-directed with Michael Fengler and shot in Munich and Dingolfing. It follows ex-convict Franz Walsch as he re-enters Munich’s criminal underworld, navigating ambiguous relationships with two women and a friend implicated in his brother’s death. Stylised through static compositions, minimal dialogue, and high-contrast monochrome cinematography by Dietrich Lohmann, the film treats noir not as genre but as structure to be exposed and exhausted. Its themes centre on mediated identity, erotic ambiguity, and the futility of narrative resolution. Though critically respected for its formal control and ensemble discipline, its austerity makes it demanding — rewarding for those attuned to Fassbinder’s early methods, less so for viewers seeking emotional or narrative engagement.

13:00

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1972

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 chamber drama confines itself to one Bremen apartment, tracing the rise and collapse of fashion designer Petra von Kant’s obsessive relationship with younger woman Karin Thimm. With an all-female cast and static, theatrical staging, it uses repetition, framing and silence to dissect codependency, class, and the violence of care — not as psychology, but as architecture.

13:00

The Marriage of Maria Braun

Rainer Werner Fassbinder · 1979

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1979 drama follows Maria Braun from her wartime wedding through fifteen years of survival, ambition, and moral compromise in postwar West Germany. Hanna Schygulla’s restrained performance anchors a film that charts national recovery through private sacrifice — loyalty weaponised, love instrumentalised, and agency steadily dissolved. Shot by Michael Ballhaus and scored by Peer Raben, it is the first of Fassbinder’s BRD Trilogy.