Word: biberkopf
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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...
...film is also not without its lighter moments. Fassbinder has remarked that Biberkopf has an "unshakable faith in the good side of people," and the women he attracts to him are generally reflective of this disposition. In one particularly funny and touching scene, Biberkopf seduces Cilly, one of the many women who wander into and out of his life, by sharing a pair of boots with her: they are big enough for the two of them to wear together, he says, and proves it. The character of Frau Bast (Brigitte Mira), the nosy landlady, also adds comic relief...
Fassbinder lends the most charming touch to Biberkopf's life, though, with the addition of Mieze, a girlfriend almost radiant in her innocence. Her devotion to Biberkopf is reflected in her willingness to prostitute herself so that she can afford his little extravagances, including liquor and a pet canary. Fassbinder ingeniously uses lighting techniques so as to make Mieze appear to glow in every scene, and this luminescence is especially effective when compared to the dank atmosphere of the rest of the film. Even some of the periodic "quotation" screens which accompany the film refer to the charms...
...easier to understand Biberkopf's hallucinatory insanity, and the symbolism of his dreams, when one considers his illness in the context of the brilliance extinguished by Reinhold's murder of Mieze. In perhaps the most subtly metaphorical of the dream sequences, Biberkopf ventures into the woods where he and Mieze used to go, not far from where her body was later found. On this trip, however, with Mieze dead, all the birds are caged, captive like the canary which once lived in the lovers' apartment...
...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 turns this depiction outward again, as his metaphors...