Word: berlin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Screen star John Travolta has accused the German government of discriminating against his religion, reports People Daily. Travolta told a mass rally of Scientologists in Berlin protesting Germany's tough stance on their group that there was no excuse for governments to discriminate against religious bodies...
...spite of its admittedly imposing length, Berlin Alexanderplatz manages to maintain an audience's attention, mainly by presenting a superbly crafted plot and highly symbolic cinematography. The film, composed of 13 parts and an epilogue, details Biberkopf's unsuccessful attempts to lead an honest and "decent" life following his release. It is simultaneously a story of failed and successful relationships and occupations, flirtations with Nazi sentiments, dealings with villainous small-time gangsters and bouts with alcoholism and insanity...
...would presume that, in any film of this length, a certain degree of repetition of plot developments and themes is inevitable. In fact, since Berlin Alexanderplatz deals as much with psychological devastation as it does with romance and criminal intrigue, it is to be expected that the protagonist should, in proper Freudian fashion, relive certain events of his life over and over again, seeking control over events otherwise relegated to the unchangeable past. Fassbinder brutally exploits the technique of flashback in scenes in which Biberkopf recalls the murder of his girlfriend. Fassbinder offers different voice-overs in each reenactment, which...
Having noted the overly-abstruse parts of the film, one is still able to appreciate the magnificence of the reminder of its efforts. Perhaps the most startling of Berlin Alexanderplatz's metaphors is the relation of the murder and mayhem within Biberkopf's life to the carnage within a slaughterhouse; although this parallel is explored in earlier parts of the film as well, it finds its most successful expression in Biberkopf's psychotic hallucinations. In one particular scene, the nude bodies of Biberkopf and his lover Mieze are tied to an assembly line, and sliced open as though they...
Fassbinder remarked in 1980 that Berlin Alexanderplatz, while offering an insight into the social psychology leading up to the Second World War, simultaneously issues a warning to complacent audiences. He maintains that fascist ideas may take root just as easily in post-1945 democracies, born out of modern-day attitudes, traumas and decadence no different from those which Franz Biberkopf faced in 1920s Germany. Despite the minor flaws and over-exuberances of his technique, Fassbinder succeeds in encapsulating the attitudes and psychologies of the Weimar Republic in the life of a single common man. Reaching even greater brilliance, he then...