Review of The Marriage of Maria Braun

While it's never less than interesting, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's allegory about the post-war economic German Miracle is somewhat slow and stifling, designed to constantly remind the viewer that an allegory is indeed what it is and to discount the notions of love that the writers (there are several, including Fassbinder) push to the fore. Hanna Schygulla is good as the lead symbol, a war bride whose calculated sexual aggressiveness (a symbol of West Germany's rapaciousness) brings her to prominence in industry while she pines for her husband, who is imprisoned for murder. The points Fassbinder's trying to make are a bit obtuse and perhaps not designed for American viewers (those are his prerogatives, after all) but the early scenes of the country immediately after the war are fascinating and he's aided immensely by the great Michael Ballhaus' restless camera. After prosperity begins, Fassbinder relies more on words and the visuals become more traditional and blander and it's also here where the melodrama escalates, sometimes pretentiously.