CHINESE ROULETTE (Chinesisches Roulette)
A
Stöckach and Munich (86 mi)
April - June 1976 d:
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
I have tried to make a
film that pushes artificiality, an artificial form, to extremes in order to be
able to totally call it into question.
I’m pretty certain that in film history there is no single film that
contains so many camera movements, traveling shots, and counter-movements of
the actors. The film I’ve made, which
appears to speak out for marriage as an institution, is in reality about how
infamous, mendacious, and destructive marriages are, and perhaps, precisely
because of this equivocation, it becomes stronger than other films that
explicitly speak out against marriage.
—Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1977)
Taking us into a minefield of marital discord, creating
characters the audience loves to hate, including one of the most poisonous mother/daughter
relationships this side of Mommie
Dearest, which hadn’t even been written yet, this deliciously fascinating Gothic
chamber drama is a psychological examination of the indiscreet charm of the
bourgeoisie, where infidelity and deep-rooted family contempt prevail at this
country estate, filled with aristocratic austerity and detachment, hostility,
distrust, and malicious intent. Fassbinder
disbands his customary stock theatre troupe, utilizes two of Godard's
actresses, the always lovely and enchanting Anna Karina as the husband’s
mistress, and Macha Méril, who is simply brilliant here in a mute role as the
governess to a spoiled and overly pampered, polio-stricken child, the equally
brilliant Andrea Schober, who turns the tables on her unsuspecting parents,
inviting both to show up at the estate with their respective lovers on the same
weekend, feeling they are blaming her for their own unhappiness, so she
challenges them to a truth or dare game that has deadly consequences.
These roles of Méril and Schober, similar to PERSONA (1966), are among the most
inventive in the Fassbinder repertoire, and the Sirkian style here is
reminiscent of THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VAN KANT (1972), with fabulous
choreography, a kaleidoscope of statuesque faces that are constantly in motion,
constantly reflected back in bizarre glass and mirror images, like abstract
double reflections, very slow and cold, gracefully refined, elegantly
beautiful, featuring extraordinary camera work by Michael Ballhaus, also
starring Margit Carstensen (brilliant, as always) and Alexander Allerson as the
parents, with Ulli Lommel as the wife’s lover.
Blink and you’ll miss a brief scene of a blind beggar knocking on a
mansion door, only to be seen moments later throwing away his crutches into the
back seat of his Mercedes and driving away, an indicator of how appearances are
deceptive and the entire world is living under some kind of illusion. This film is a little tribute to the failings
of marriage, and how each act of infidelity is akin to an emotional murder,
always hidden and secretive, covered up in lies, like a secret assassin, with
devastating results. The final scene of this giant castle in the darkness has
the feel of a vampire film, as if the inhabitants are largely bloodsuckers.
Chaos
as Usual: Conversations about Rainer Werner Fassbinder Interview with cinematographer Michael
Ballhaus, edited by Juliane Lorenz, Marion Schmid, Herbert Gehr, pages 105-106:
He never allowed anything to just
take its course. He was far too
interested in the process. But by and
by, a strong mutual understanding developed between us—which doesn’t mean that
we always agreed. It’s just that our
relationship graduated to another level.
We no longer had these constant confrontations. We knew what we could accomplish
together. Three movies evolved in that
period, which are interesting with regard to our collaboration. One was Chinese
Roulette, a movie which I find impossible to watch today but which had a
special meaning for us then. There the
camera turned into a person, an actor, so to speak. We developed a very precise and interesting
visual language. I learned an incredible
amount while we shot it, and our work was surprisingly harmonious. By the way, only three months elapsed between
the idea and the finished product—the fastest work of my entire career.
Rainer had been given a grant. So he said, “Let’s make a movie. What shall we make?” We first chose the actors and decided on a
locations. I told him, “We own this
house in Franconia. We might do it
there. It’s quite a beautiful
location.” Rainer went to Paris for a
couple of weekends and returned with the script. We decided to shoot the movie in our house,
and I realized that this was bound to end in disaster. Rainer, who goes out every night, who
constantly needs to be surrounded by people, in a place where there’s no
entertainment for miles. The nearest bar
was in Schweinfurt, and it was very boring.
I thought it was going to be awful but it turned out to be the exact
opposite. We were all together in that
house, we lived together, ate together, spent every evening together playing
Chinese roulette. Of course, we also
tore each other to pieces. But Rainer
felt he had a family, and in the end he didn’t want to leave. A lot of crazy things happened, but he felt
at home and never even left the house.
It was a strange experience.
Ballhaus, who went on to work in the 80’s with Martin
Scorsese in America, shot a total of sixteen films with Fassbinder, the last
being THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1979), arguably the director’s most
commercially accessible work, a film that played at international film
festivals and placed him on the international map. Many of his earlier films were only discovered
afterwards, where this tense psychodrama is among his most visually stylized
works, reminiscent of Bergman’s PERSONA (1966), making it a point to shoot a
choreography of faces in close-up merging in and out of one another, like cells
symbiotically reshaping themselves, constantly reflected in mirrors or sculpted
glass, creating a kind of Picasso disfiguration, as the camera incessantly
moves around the room, peering around corners, including a glass liquor cabinet
in the center of the living room, dazzled by the refracted images seen while
staring through the glass. Actors are
often shot at odd angles, or hold their poses like fashion models carved in
stone, dramatizing the tense interpersonal relationships that develop, each one
growing more suspicious of the other, where Fassbinder’s drama literally has
them on display, like animals pacing in a cage, with the camera continually
encircling them, Escena (dolly
circular) de Chinese Roulette (Fassbinder) YouTube (1:19), as if capturing
them offguard, naked and exposed. It’s a
uniquely opulent technique, some might even think garish or overdone, yet it
visualizes the unseen psychological breakdowns occuring throughout the film,
enhanced by a conceptualized vision that accentuates the fragile vulnerability
of what’s happening underneath the surface where a series of emotional
explosions are taking place, leaving the characters onscreen in tattered pieces
afterwards. The film opens with an
emotional shock to the system, Chinese Roulette (Opening
Scene) - YouTube (2:15), as Arianne (Margit Carstensen) and her 12-year old
daughter Angela (Andrea Schober), who walks with metal crutches for both legs
that can be heard clanking throughout the film, are sitting in separate rooms
listening to the operatic sounds of an LP record playing the lush finale to
Mahler’s ecstatic 8th Symphony for voices and orchestra, one of the largest-scale
choral works in the classical repertoire, a work that looks to the heavens,
bathed in the lyrics of Goethe’s Faust,
arguably the most famous narrative of man making a pact with the devil, yet so
powerfully celestial that it’s often called “Symphony of a Thousand.” Through the windows, trees are seen rustling
in the breeze, a contrast to the inert and wordless characters onscreen, as
both women appear stuck in time. The
scene is exceptionally dense, using exalted music that spiritually transcends
the limitations and smallness of humankind.
As if on cue, the father, Gerhard Christ (Alexander Allerson), opens the
front door and the music instantaneously stops.
All that is transitory
Is but an image;
The inadequacy of earth
Here finds fulfillment;
The ineffable
Here is accomplished;
The eternal feminine
leads us upwards.
Using Biblical names for several characters, the innocence
of this Edenesque opening scene abruptly unravels into multiple derivations of
original sin, as a wealthy Munich couple are heading their separate ways this
weekend, leaving Angela and her collection of dolls in the hands of her mute
governess, Traunitz (Macha Méril). Gerhard
is heading to the airport, supposedly a business conference in Oslo, while
Arianne is dashing off to Milan, yet within minutes the viewers realize the
deception, as Gerhard is at the airport meeting his longtime mistress Irene
Cartis (Anna Karina), a French hairdresser, with plans to spend an idyllic
weekend together at his family’s countryside home. Part of the intrigue is the exquisite
interior of the estate itself, which is identified late in the film as Castle
Traunitz, suggesting the governess may be the natural heir to this family
estate, yet through sinister legal subterfuge and some carefully kept family
secrets, indicated by a devious housekepper Kast (Brigitte Mira) who confides
to Gerhard that Ali ben Basset was murdered in Paris, suggesting criminality is
involved, yet this is only implied, as more is never revealed. However there is a clearly defined
aristocratic class system in place, where Kast and her embittered, sexually
ambiguous son Gabriel (Volker Spengler) are the live-in servants and caretakers
of the home, who begrudgingly follow every order and command, no questions asked,
just as if it was a precise military operation.
This hierarchy is conspicuously in place the moment Gerhard arrives,
barking out instructions while he and his mistress head out for a little walk
in the woods, where they sexually commune with nature. Afterwards, as they return inside the house,
they walk in on Arianne having sex on the floor with Gerhard’s business
assistant Kolbe (Ulli Lommel). Astounded,
shocked, hurt, and bitterly disappointed, both couples laugh at the absurdity
of the timing, yet continue to pair off as they had originally planned. After an awkward dinner, perhaps most
unexpected is the later arrival of Angela, bringing along her hideous
collection of broken or disfigured dolls, accompanied by Traunitz carrying each
and every one out of the trunk, where only Kast seems to have had some
inclination about this all along.
Arianne goes ballistics and is ready to strike her daughter (Gerhard
holds her back), actually pointing a gun at her at another point, as she
diabolically planned this entire weekend event just to get back at her parents,
tired of all the lies and deceit that had been going on for years. This bizarre group of eight comprises the
household, much like François Ozon did with his zany musical tribute 8 WOMEN
(2002), as the weekend unravels in a series of embarrassing unpleasantries,
offering continuously changing mood shifts from jealousy, mistrust, rage,
hatred, and sadism.
Angela starts the next morning by opening the doors of each
parent, finding them naked in bed with their “new” partners, having a laugh at
their expense as the adults go about their business as if nothing has happened,
liars and cheaters one and all, where the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie is
scathingly depicted, always remaining overly polite, as is customary for the aristocratic
class, wrapping themselves around custom and established routines, where the
women especially compliment one another, even show signs of affection, though
the men, seen later playing chess, are much more wary. Actually the female characters assert
themselves more and literally stand out in this film, typical of Fassbinder’s
inclinations later in his career, always overshadowing the presence of men, providing
most of the real internal intrigue, where they become the dominant players in
the room. Gerhard’s authority rests on
the fact that he is indisputably the wealthiest person in the family, but he is
no match for the vicious psychological warfare taking place before him. One of the most startling scenes is a look
inside one of the many closed doors that line the narrow halls of the estate,
where loud music is playing, kraftwerk - Radioactivity
(Original Version) - YouTube (3:34),
representing a stark new German modernization, juxtaposing the new world
against the old. Inside, Traunitz is
dancing furiously to the music while using Angela’s crutches, spinning around
and kicking her feet, Rainer
Werner Fassbinder - Chinese Roulette (excerpt) - YouTube (54 seconds),
offering an explosive look at her underlying feelings of unbridled liberation,
showing how neither woman will allow themselves to be victimized by their physical
disabilities. What follows is Angela’s
turn, initiating an incendiary parlor game of “Russian roulette,” where one
side tries to get what another team is thinking by asking a stream of
questions, with Angela choosing the teams ahead of time, where Irene and Kolbe,
the two adulterous lovers, the always suspicious Kast, and her despised mother
comprise one team, revealing a chilling calculation on her part. While the game itself may seem silly and
harmless enough from afar, but in the room amongst the players, the dramatic
intensity that Fassbinder provides with each successive question, along with
the shocked reaction on the faces, reaches an extraordinary level of sheer
Sirkian melodrama, with the director milking it for all it’s worth. While this vicious game is meant to be
intentionally cruel and sadistic, there’s a kind of camp, wicked fun to be had
by asking such provocative questions like, “Who would this person have been in
the Third Reich?” Traunitz, exceedingly
clever throughout, comes up with the most ingenious answers, yet they all
indulge Angela and play along, where the results are perhaps not surprising at
all, as ultimately it allows Angela to not only insult, but express her unbridled
hatred and contempt towards her mother. What’s
perhaps most surprising is the number of ideas planted in every scene, where
the framing of the film, the artificiality of the color, the mirrors, the
décor, and the extravagant look of the characters really tell the story, as
this is another extraordinary Fassbinder social critique that mocks existing
social norms by highlighting failed relationships and extreme emotional
manipulation, where the ending is so operatically over the top that it’s hard
not to take a certain amount of pleasure in this family’s demise.