Liebe ist kälter als der Tod (1969)

reviewed by
John Smyth


LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH (Liebe ist kälter als der Tod) (1969)

Rating = *** out of ******

Stockholm Film Review (http://www.reviewfilm.com)

In 1969, the Western world was in turmoil. The Vietnam war had poisoned U.S. politics - events like the My Lai massacre, the Tet offensive and the shootings at Kent State university fuelled an already burgeoning counter-culture movement. In Europe, students had taken to the streets in France (the so-called chienlit), Germany was divided by the Iron Curtain and Warsaw Pact tanks had savagely crushed the Prague Spring. The movie world was feeling the whiff of revolution too. Bonny and Clyde (1967) had already signalled that a change was coming.

In 1969, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda would make Easy Rider and Sam Peckinpah would release The Wild Bunch. Directors like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich and many others were on the verge of redefining American cinema. Many of these new directors were inspired by the French New Wave, the term describing the group of French directors who came to prominence in the late Fifties and early Sixties. Directors such as Francois Trauffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol and Erich Rohmer made movies which gave rise to the auteur theory; the notion that the director was the most important influence on a movie (as distinct from the producer, the actors or even the writers). In Germany, a young film-maker was similarly inspired by the New Wave directors. His name was Rainer Werner Fassbinder and he announced himself to the world at the 1969 Berlin Film festival with Liebe ist kälter als der Tod. The movie got a very lukewarm reception at the festival, though it didn't put Fassbinder off movie-making.

Liebe ist kälter als der Tod is dedicated to Rohmer and Chabrol, and a minor (female) character in the film is called Erika Rohmer, just in case we missed the introduction to the film. The film itself is a very low-budget black and white production with atrocious sound quality (not such a problem if you're reading the subtitles), indifferent production values and several examples of very bad acting indeed. The movie opens with a bunch of gangsters under interrogation. Their inquisitors are not the police, but a crime syndicate who want to recruit the unwilling gangsters into the organisation, and intend to brutalise them until they acquiesce.

Two of the criminals strike up a friendship. Franz (Fassbinder) is a pimp in Munich while Bruno (Ulli Lommel) is from a provincial town. Franz is disdainful of the syndicate and tells Bruno to contact him when they are released. Some days later, Bruno arrives at Franz' address and meets his girlfriend, a prostitute called Johanna (Hanna Schygulla). Franz is keeping a low profile because another pimp, the Turk, is trying to kill him. At Bruno's urging, they devise a plan to retaliate first (in a manner of speaking) by eliminating the Turk. This plan leads to a much higher body count than expected, and proves that Bruno is a ruthless killer. even though Franz is impressed by his resolute manner, Johanna distrusts him deeply. She fears him not just because he seems to have taken a proprietary interest in her, but also his ambition could get both herself and Franz killed. She becomes increasingly apprehensive when Bruno decides to rob a bank with Franz.

Next paragraph (between the ****) contains spoiler information. Page down for the rest of the spoiler-free review.


Johanna's fears seem to be realised when Bruno, having killed one of Johanna's clients, meets a man in a games arcade. They speak in a coded manner, but it is obvious that they are both part of the crime syndicate featured at the beginning of the movie. Bruno instructs the other man to make sure that Johanna does not survive the robbery attempt. At the beginning of the film, the syndicate had threatened Franz by speculating about his girlfriend, but he had not wavered. They had presumably decided that a more subtle approach was necessary. Their presumption is that, once Johanna is gone, Franz will join his new 'friend' in the syndicate. However, Johanna has also planned ahead. When they arrive at the bank, there are men loitering about outside. They are policemen, who mortally wound Bruno in a shoot-out. Franz drags him into the car, but Bruno is already dead. Franz is forced to dump his body out of the car to halt the chasing police. Johanna admits that she called the police, intending to prevent the robbery. She has unwittingly saved her own life (and probably Franz' too) but he calls her 'whore', believing her to have betrayed his trusted friend. She was prepared to see her lover go to prison than be killed in a robbery, but, at the end of the film, they drive into an uncertain future, and Johanna's sacrifice goes unrecognised.


Is this film any good ? Well, it certainly establishes some of the themes that would occupy Fassbinder during his professional life. There is a definite sense of style (though the fixed camera position for almost every shot suggests a budget limitation more than anything else). Hanna Schygulla is clearly star-material she is positively brimming with confidence and charisma - she would be Fassbinder's muse in many subsequent movies. Fassbinder doesn't do so bad himself as Franz, but Ulli Lommel's performance as Bruno is completely ludicrous - his inability to convey any emotion with conviction and his appearance (trilby, trenchcoat and sunglasses are straight out of the Forties) are more likely to induce sniggers. Fassbinder had a lot to learn about directing too - many of the scenes are far too amateurish, particularly the gangster scenes. The climactic scene at the bank is simply terrible. Some scenes provoke laughter - the appearance of a black American gangster's at the beginning of the film is both incongruous and unintentionally hilarious. A supposedly erotic scene between Bruno and a woman on a train is even worse. It's not surprising that the film got the cold shoulder in Berlin, particularly when compared to U.S. independent films.

As an introduction to Fassbinder's oeuvre, "Liebe ist..." is a good example of the ideas that he would explore in later (and better made) movies. His art-house techniques, melodramatic story and unconventional plots are all explored here, though the theme of betrayal and loyalty is perhaps more personal than some of his later, more thematic movies. Fassbinder's reach clearly exceeds his grasp here and the lack of money shines through - scenes where the film equipment accidentally appears in view , or the actors don't perform remain in the movie, suggesting that Fassbinder couldn't afford reshoots. His technique suffered from the budget restrictions too - he favours sparse dialogue and long pauses to punctuate the action, and the poor production values tend to be distracting to the audience. Still, he signalled his ambition, and would establish his reputation within a few years (and retains that reputation ever since).

Two of Fassbinder's contemporaries, Wolfgang Petersen and Roland Emmerich earn their living in Hollywood these days. Petersen has forsaken the gritty and gripping realism of Das Boot (1981) for more mainstream fare such as Outbreak (1995) and In the Line of Fire (1993). Emmerich is Mr. Mainstream, who with Dean Devlin, has produced summer blockbusters such as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996) and the god-awful Godzilla (1998). It is doubtful that Fassbinder, had he not died of a drugs overdose in 1982) would have made the same transition. Though he turned to more accessible, English-language films towards the end of his life (he died at the age of 37), it is hard to envisage him devoting his talent to glossy superficial work - he was too much of an individualist for that.

(c) 1999 Stockholm Film Review


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