Movies:
Despair
- Rating:
- Genre: Drama
- Movie Type: Psychological Drama
- Themes: Unlikely Criminals, Midlife Crises
- Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Main Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Andréa Ferréol, Volker Spengler, Klaus Löwitsch
- Release Year: 1978
- Country: WG
- Run Time: 120 minutes
Plot
Having made as many films as he had years, at 31, Rainer Werner Fassbinder essayed a slightly different approach for his 32nd film, Despair. Here, he uses a witty screenplay written by the well-known playwright Tom Stoppard, based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Furthermore, the entire film, set in 1930s Germany, is in English. It received mixed reviews, if only because it is so unlike the director's other works. In the story, a Russian owner of a German chocolate-factory, whose business and marriage are both on the rocks, fantasizes about leaving his current life, and living another one. Indeed, he has delusions that he is somehow outside himself, watching himself live his life. So strong is his desire to alter his life that when he encounters a tramp while on a brief business trip, he imagines that the man looks exactly like him, decides to exchange identities with the tramp, and murders him. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideCast
- Dirk Bogarde - Hermann Herman
- Andréa Ferréol - Lydia Herman
- Volker Spengler - Ardalion
- Klaus Löwitsch - Felix Weber
Alexander Allerson - Mayer
Isolde Barth
Hark Bohm - Doktor
Ingrid Caven - Hotel Receptionist
Liselotte Eder - Secretary
Roger Fritz - Inspector Braun
Voli Geiler - Madam
Gottfried John - Perebrodov
Peter Kern - Muller
Y Sa Lo - Elsie
Armin Meier - 1st and 2nd Twin and Foreman
Hans Zander - Muller's Brother
Adrian Hoven - Inspector Schelling
Bernhard Wicki - Orlovius
