This instalment of Fassbinder's self-proclaimed 15 hour "film" of Alfred Döblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz contains a scene that is breath-taking in its stupidity, blasphemy and cruelty. A man dressed as God manhandles a clearly distressed sheep upside down and then calmly murders her. "They Kill Animals And They Call It Art" to quote T. E. D Klein's withering and accurate expose of arthouse cinema's propensity to end lives to shock audiences and to ape profundity.
Aside from the wilful cruelty of one scene, this particular episode stands out as being quite hard to take, gloomy and full of longueur with hardly any action or involving content, the spectator simply views protagonist Hans Biberkopf feeling sorry for himself and pickling his insides.
Some of the episodes are very interesting and stimulating, but this one and the epilogue particularly are complete messes. Part IV: A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence deserves to be condemned. I condemn it.
Aside from the wilful cruelty of one scene, this particular episode stands out as being quite hard to take, gloomy and full of longueur with hardly any action or involving content, the spectator simply views protagonist Hans Biberkopf feeling sorry for himself and pickling his insides.
Some of the episodes are very interesting and stimulating, but this one and the epilogue particularly are complete messes. Part IV: A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence deserves to be condemned. I condemn it.