The Marriage of Maria Braun
d. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979
By now I'm pretty convinced that virtually no director has had a better run of consistently great films than Rainer Werner Fassbinder had during the 1970s; including The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant in '72, Fear Eats the Soul in '74, In a Year of 13 Moons in '78, and The Marriage of Maria Braun in '79. The latter, one of Fassbinder's most exquisite masterpieces, concerns the life and times of Maria Braun, a strong and independent woman who sets out to make a life for herself after her husband, Hermann Braun, is sent to war. She remains faithful to him despite the fact they were married for just 2 days and only met weeks before that. Maria receives (incorrect) news that he was killed, and he comes home to find his wife with another man. She smashes a bottle over his head and kills the man, only to have Hermann take the blame for it. He's in prison for the great bulk of the movie, and Maria promises to wait for him and that they'll have a new life together. Through of a series of consequences which one may describe as Maria selling herself, she manages to land a lucrative position in a textile company. She changes throughout the film, and her naive love for Hermann also suffers the consequences. Then comes the final audacious scene; Fassbinder understands that he's too far into the narrative to insult the audience with a conventional ending. Both him and the audience understand that, for Maria Braun, there'll be no resolution without death.
