Enfant Terrible

When 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Oliver Masucci) stormed onto the stage of the Antiteater in Munich in 1967 and unceremoniously usurped the production, no one in attendance suspected that this brash guy would one day become Germany's most important filmmaker. The engaging and demanding man quickly gathers numerous actresses, self-promoters and lovers around him. He made one film after another, which caused a sensation at the festivals in Berlin and Cannes. The young director polarizes: both professionally and privately. But the workaholism, the physical self-exploitation of everyone involved and the unbridled drug consumption soon claim their first victims. “Stages and moments from the life and work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder are interwoven [by director Oskar Roehler] into a portrait of the manic filmmaker that is fractured in many ways, shimmering between dream and nightmare, and which repeatedly works its way through the interplay between longing for love and the inability to give it space in life. Shot exclusively in the studio, the film is decidedly not intended to be biographical, but instead revolves around variations of an artist's life in an aesthetically condensed way. Brilliantly acted and, as a bulky homage, a powerful work, the political roots of Fassbinder's oeuvre and its contemporary impact are largely ignored. - Worth seeing from 16.” (Encyclopedia of International Film)