The trilogy is accorded a series of breathtakingly, resonantly gorgeous transfers by Criterion.
Now this 15-hour-plus epic runs at 25fps, as per the original German TV broadcast.
To his credit, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s highly problematic directorial intentions don’t emerge from the literal nowhere.
The film’s first image sets up the template for this magnificently excruciating study of romantic degradation.
Love hurts. Fassbinder’s often misunderstood study is magnificently excruciating.
The film comes down to a series of operatic, sometimes campy examinations of questions pertaining to free will, chance, cause and effect.