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 Guide
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
