Quote:
Part melodrama, part infernal parody of ‘Candide’, ‘In a Year of 13 Moons’ is one of Fassbinder’s most moving films, without once relinquishing his icy formal control or savage cynicism. It achieves a remarkable effect whereby its protagonist’s world seems to open up as the film continues – he begins alone, meets people, traverses a lot of places – but actually closes in, imprisons him, simply reinforcing the labyrinthine world of his own private hell, where the only escape is death.
When we first meet Elvira, the film’s transsexual heroine, she is dressed in men’s clothing, trying to pick up boys in a dusky park. When her female appurtenances are discovered, she is beaten up by a group of thugs, left limping on a railway track, offering a promise of escape she cannot take up. Fassbinder’s alienating method here is typical of the film as a whole. It is very difficult to make out what is going on, the scene is very murky. Fassbinder’s editing and composition tend to fragment rather than establish the action, leaving us with a montage of darkness and sinister figures, scored to Mahler in an ironic rejoinder to the passive gay fantasy of Visconti’s ‘Death in Venice’. To add to our confusion, Fassbinder’s intertitles begin explaining the meaning of the title, making it difficult to follow both levels. Just as we’ve finally made out what’s going on, and the film reaches what might be considered a dramatic or emotional crisis, forcing the viewer into the scene, Fassbinder hurls us back, framing it in long shot, and throwing screen-filling credits over it!
So, while I suggested the film was moving, it’s with no help from the director. Elvira shares a narrative trajectory of decline similar to one of Fassbinder’s most famous characters, Fox; indeed, here it is worse, she never begins with wealth and ‘love’, but is abused from the very start. The opening sequences reveal the extent of Fassbinder’s despair. Elvira is beaten up by thugs, in the outside world. When she comes home, she is attacked by her so-called boyfriend, who abandons her, having savagely and interminably insulted her, mocking her alcoholism, her weight problems, suggesting her brain has shrunk – that it would be better for the world if she was crushed like an insect. Fassbinder’s vision is not a reassuring one; there is no refuge from a brutal world, the violent poison infects home and outside alike.
Language(s):German
Subtitles:English (optional)
