Very best movie i ever watch

Just perfect...

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"Die Ehe der Maria Braun" or "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is a German film that runs for almost 2 hours and was written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder only 3 years before his untimely death. The film won Fassbinder and lead actress Schygulla many awards and it was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Unfortunately I have to say that I did not think this was a particularly good watch. For the most part, the film is not really interesting, but then again, I am not the greatest Fassbinder fan in general. There was one situation in a train which was particularly bad when a woman and a man, strangers at this point, talk to each other. It never felt authentic in a way they were rushing the words and dialogs. Apart from that, it is obvious that Fassbinder tries very controversial with all kinds of cheating sleaze and graphic nudity, which is fine if he was telling a convincing story that went with it all. But he does not. I really like Fassbinder's "Angst essen Seele auf", but this one here did not do too much for me. He does not seem to be the most talented when it comes to making a statement in terms of post-war history or political contents in general. I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down. Check out the other film from him that I just mentioned instead.

'The Marriage of Maria Braun' is German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's best-known and most financially successful movie and it's not hard to see why: it's a big event, a tour de force. This melodrama tells the story of an audacious, beautiful woman who puts her survival instinct to use during the early post-war era, when capitalist West Germany arose from the ashes. The film begins as she's getting married amidst the chaos of the last day of World War II in 1945, and much of what follows has to do with the peculiar way in which she devotes herself to her absent, yet somehow always present, idealized husband. The character of Maria is fascinating as a person, but it also serves as an allegory for Germany during this period of reconstruction, now generally referred to as the "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). Hanna Shygulla gives a perfect performance as the gorgeous and strong-willed Maria. She and Fassbinder were close and had worked together in many plays and films, including 'The Bitter Tears of Eva Von Kant', in 1972. By the time they made 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' in 1979, four years had passed since their last collaboration, so they both regarded it as a special reunion. To me, the film is a testament of the director's nostalgia and adoration for his diva. He was infamously difficult with many of his actors and actresses, yet is said to have treated Shygulla with a special kind of tenderness, and I believe it shows here. Fassbinder was openly gay, but married twice. His relationships with his first wife, Ingrid Caven, and Moroccan male lover El Hedi Ben Salem, both important actors in his films, are known to have been especially tempestuous. This pattern of love/hate may reflect on some of the characters in his work. He was accused (perhaps unfairly) by some feminists of being misogynistic and by some gay critics of being homophobic. I haven't watched enough of his films to have an opinion on this. But I sense there's a very particular, mixed energy projected onto the character of Maria Braun, who is both hero and antihero, someone who has an admirable tenacity to overcome adversity, yet is willing to prostitute herself and stop at nothing in order to accomplish her goals. It's this complexity that makes the film interesting. Nothing here is easily spelled out as right or wrong.'The Marriage of Maria Braun' is the first part of Fassbinder's BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) trilogy, along with 'Veronica Voss' (1982) and 'Lola' (1981), which is made available as a set by the Criterion Collection. ('Veronica Voss' was filmed last, but is meant to be viewed as the second part of the trilogy.)

This first part of the BRD Trilogy has more passion and plot density than Lola, but less of the magic of Veronica Voss. The political musings have point to them: we see the shortages after the war, how the blackmarketers were able to control so much of the day-to-day life (delicious moment when Fassbinder, playing a grifter, tries to sell a complete set of Kleist to Schygulla, who remarks that burning books don't provide much warmth: she really wants firewood).There's some clumsiness in the first hour. The scene in Maria's room with the black soldier, interrupted by Hermann's appearance should go quicker. The train scene when Maria meets Karl Oswald falls flat when she insults the GI--I cringed, it was so bad. But as the story develops and the years go by, I was drawn more and more into this glossy, cold world.

This movie was, as Homer Simpson would have put it, "more boring than church." Maybe I don't understand it well enough, and I thought it started out pretty well, but after (START OF SPOILER) Hermann Braun is sent to jail and Maria starts working/sleeping with her boss it just started to drag, and I struggled to keep awake. Again, maybe it symbolizes something, but the explosion at the end seemed very forced and out of place. (END OF SPOILER). In the end, I fail to see why others think it's so great, as I found it extremely boring. By the way, I did not watch this movie by my own free will, as I was required to see it for a Film class.