550 - Berlin Alexanderplatz, Part 11, Germany, 1980. Dir. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

Saturday, December 22, 2018

550 - Berlin Alexanderplatz, Part 11, Germany, 1980.  Dir. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

Knowledge is Power, and the Early Bird Catches the Worm.

Franz returns to Reinhold.

Why?

Reinhold wonders.  He holds a gun on him.  Franz tells him to put it down.  Reinhold asks him why he is here.

"What do I have to deal with?  That business with the automobile?"

No.

Franz has moved on.  His arm is gone.  Quibbling about it will not make his arm grow back.

What, then?

Franz wants back in.

Really?

Here is the man who tried to kill him, who is responsible for his missing his right arm, who lied to him about who he was, who lured him into playing lookout for an organized crime burglary, who played innocent and pawned off his expired girlfriends on him . . .

And Franz wants back in.

With Reinhold.  Meck.  Bruno.  And Pums.

Franz is about to go full bore off the wagon.  To relapse.  Regress.  Backslide.

He is drinking again.  Working as a pimp.  Ready to work the criminal underground.  Give in to his desires.

And then, his anger has returned.

Oh no.

Franz brings Reinhold to his apartment.  He has him hide in the bed.  Under the covers.  So that he can spy on Mieze.  Because Mieze is a lady, says Franz.  And Franz wants Reinhold to witness how a decent woman behaves.

Reinhold witnesses something else.  First, Mieze does not behave the way Franz expects she will.  There is a role reversal.  He presents her with 200 marks, which he has recently earned from his restored association with Poms.  But she responds in fear, wondering why he went and did it, thinking that she is providing enough for the both of them, reading too much into his gesture.  She thinks he is leaving her.  Precisely what he thought when she went to work on the streets to help earn a living.  She now sees herself as the breadwinner holds herself responsible for their income.  She does not understand what would motivate him to go to work.

She thinks he is leaving her.

She refuses the money.  She tells him to give it to the poor.

She demands he promise he will never do it again.

Franz is afraid.  Mieze does not seem to need him.  But he has grown dependent upon her.

And then, Franz loses his temper.  As he did with Ida.  Here in this same room.  In a similar manner.

The director sits on this season for awhile and allows it to play itself out.

It is disturbing.  Mieze represents everything Franz wants in life and he cannot bear the thought of living without her.  And yet in his pent-up rage, he nearly puts himself in that position of living without her.  Because of what he nearly does to hers.

Franz asks her if she loves her client.  She says, Yes.  Yet she insists she loves Franz too and is committed to him.  That she is his girl.

Franz does not see things that way.

Things escalate quickly.

He looks to leave.  She stands in the middle of the room and screams.  Loudly.  Bemoaning her fate.  Franz tells her to go to her client.

The argument, however, is swept up in the rage of the moment.

Mrs. Bast walks in.  As she had done several years ago when Franz was attacking Ida.  She stops in horror.  At what she is witnessing.  Not again.  Reinhold emerges from the bed and enters the room.  He probably saves Mieze's life.

As Franz was in the process of doing to Mieze what he was doing to Ida four years ago.  In the same positions.  In the same way.

His relapse is complete.

And yet, somehow, after all of this, they remain together.  With her face bruised.  She stands beside him.

Hooked.

Dangerously so.

The clouds on the horizon slither ominously towards them.

The clouds are dark.

And foreboding.


*                              *                              *                              *


And even if the worms eat dirt and let it out behind them, they always eat it up again.
The little devils show no mercy.
If you stuff their bellies full today, tomorrow they have to start all over again.

When the soldiers come marching
Through the city side by side
All the girls throw their doors
And casements open wide

And while he's dancing with Eva, inwardly he loves two people.
One is his Mieze, whom he wishes could be there.
The other is--
Reinhold.

Maybe I'll have to take him to The Salvation Army, and he'll have to sit on the sinners' bench.  He'll sit up there at the front, praying, and I'll be watching.  And why shouldn't Franz Bieberkopf sit on the sinners' bench?  Isn't it a place where he belongs?

Who says it's not?  What can anyone say against The Salvation Army? And who is Reinhold, of all people, to get uppity about The Salvation Army?  A guy who once--what do I mean once--who ran at least five times to Dresdenerstrasse himself.

And what a state he was in.  And they helped him.  His tongue was hanging out, but they fixed him up, not to become such a scoundrel, of course.  Hallelujah.  Hallelujah.  Franz has experienced it all: the song, the call.  The knife was at his throat.  Franz, Hallelujah.

Why shouldn't Franz sit on the sinners' bench?  When will salvation come?  When he throws himself down in the face of his terrible death and opens his mouth and sings with many others?

Are you in love with him?
Yes.

I told him I belong to you.

You will drive yourself crazy always thinking about something you cannot change anyway.

This is lovely.
You don't know how lovely it is.

In a way, I'm happy it happened, because now I share a secret with you, and everything's much stronger between us.  Much stronger.

I'm not afraid at all now, because I know that I am going to protect you.  I know it.

In bed she is as gentle as a feather, each time as quiet, tender and happy as at the start.  And always a little serious.
He can never quite figure her out.