536 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 2--Grandma and Gregor, Germany, 1972. Dir. Warner Rainer Fassbinder.

Saturday, December 8, 2018

536 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 2--Grandma and Gregor, Germany, 1972.  Dir. Warner Rainer Fassbinder.

Eight Hours Don't Make a Day
Part 2
Grandma and Gregor

A silent hammer has yet to be invented.

This is what Jochen's workmate says to Grandma when she asks him to hammer more quietly.  She is concerned that someone might hear them.  After all, they do not have permission to be in here.

They are in a closed city library.

At night.

Jochen has brought his workmates over to help Grandma.  Grandma and her boyfriend Gregor.

They have moved into the library in a neighborhood where the children play in the streets.  The children play in the streets because they have no kindergartens.  Nowhere to go.  And they have to navigate the traffic that plows through without apparent concern for their well-being.

So Grandma is going to open a kindergarten here.

The books have all been removed, sadly, and the man who put them into the truck to take them away treated them with disregard.  Throwing them around.  Letting them fall into the street.  What difference does it make.  After all, they are only books.

When Grandma asked the Librarian why the library was closing, she said flatly, "Because people don't read."

A heartbreaking moment in the middle of this joyful episode.

But if anyone is pragmatic, Grandma is.  For her, life is about taking action.  Doing.  No time for theory.  In fact, there is hardly anytime time for thinking at all.  Which is a big reason why this episode is so joyful.  Watching Grandma take action first and think later.  And the scrapes that it gets her in.

So she has taken action and moved into the closed library.  After all, the city did leave the door unlocked.

And now she has had enough time to realize that she might not want people to hear them hammering.  Because a loud hammer might get them busted.

But we all know who the real hammer is.

It is Grandma herself.

She is the change she wants to see in the world.

And she is not silent.

She bangs her way through life like there is no tomorrow.

Or more to the point as though she is building tomorrow.  Herself.

And she gives Gregor a good drubbing along the way.

Jochen and his colleagues finish the job just before dawn.  As Gregor and Grandma sit sleeping like statues in the middle of the floor.  The young men leave quietly to let them sleep.  So that Gregor and Grandma awaken to their new dream.

A kindergarten.

It is perfect.

Only one thing is missing.

The children.

Time to recruit.  Grandma and Gregor walk out into the street and make their announcement.  Only to discover humorously that the children have not been waiting for them.  And are unimpressed.

Now how do you run this thing?

This is Luise Ullrich's episode.

And she delivers one of the great performances.

She is going to be discovered over time.  And appreciated for her achievement.  Yes, she was already discovered in Germany and in Europe in the 1930s.  And even offered an MGM contract by the astute Louis B. Mayer in 1938.  And had a good career even after turning it down.  But she is going to be rediscovered today by an international audience.  How could she not be?  She is just too good.

Marion's little brother Manni will attend the kindergarten.

Along with Harald and Monika's daughter Sylvia.  Without Harald's knowledge and against his wishes.  Which will enrage him even more than Monika's purchase of a new hat.  Driving the wedge between them even further.

Back at the factory Jochen works in peace, proud of his grandmother's accomplishments.  Who somehow finds a way to triumph even after the resistance of the bureaucracy, the intrusion of the police, and the betrayal of the press.

And his colleague Franz (there is always a Franz in Fassbinder) decides to put in for foreman.  Only to be turned down.

Fassbinder continues to generate moments of hilarity.  Such as when the four comrades--Grandma, Gregor, Jochen, and Manfred--stand upright and press their noses against the glass as they look into the closed library window.

And he continues to compose frames by looking past objects to see people.  Doorways, pottery, typewriters.  As he did with the flowers in the previous episode.

Have you ever eaten lunch at a restaurant sitting next to a monkey in a cage?  In front of a fish tank.

The Germans seem to drink schnapps as the English drink tea.  Which, you will discover if you do a little research, requires that the fruit be fermented along with the liquor and not added later as a flavoring.

Fassbinder brought down many hammers in the course of his cram-packed, tumultuous career.

And none of them were silent.

But in this moment, in this mini-series, in this episode, this hammer--

was full of joy.


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There just aren't enough facilities in the world for people.

Yes, this was a city library.  But it is no more as of today.

   Oh, no.  And why not?

Because people don't read.

They're just books.

Grandma's right.  Anyone who does something is always right.

My opinion goes in my house, and no one else's!
   That's why everyone wants to leave it.  That's exactly why.

Learning never harmed anyone. . . . But thinking is better.

If you object, I'll turn you upside down.

See, they cook with water too.

If the press sticks by us, it'll all go well.
If we stick by the press, the press will stick by us.

All the things a Grandma's good for.

Management wants to fill the foreman position from someone outside the company.
It's not so bad if things stay as they are.