Effi Briest

• Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• AMG Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Period Film, Melodrama
• Themes: Infidelity, Arranged Marriages, Social Injustice
• Release Year: 1974
• Country: WG
• Run Time: 140 minutes
• MPAA Rating: NR

Plot

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's adaptation of a late 19th-century novel by Theodor Fontane is an austere period piece that may be the least characteristic of the German director's films. The titular heroine, played by Fassbinder regular Hanna Schygulla, is a 17-year-old girl forced into a loveless marriage with an old count. Living as the aristocrat's trophy wife, Effi endures her provincial existence unhappily. Her circumstances lead to a brief affair with a young lieutenant that attracts the attention of the townspeople, but not her unsuspecting husband's. Years later, however, the count discovers the love letters between his wife and her lover. As dictated by convention, he challenges the lieutenant to a duel and throws his wife out of their home. The shamed Effi is forced to live by herself, shunned by society and spurned by her family. Effi eventually returns to her unsympathetic parents, who reluctantly take in their disgraced daughter. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

Review

It's easy to see what attracted Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Theodor Fontane's 19th-century novel about a young woman abandoned by family and society when her adulterous past comes to light: The German director's movies frequently diagrammed the unhappy fates of individuals trapped by rigid social norms and their own unruly passions. Despite its thematic kinship with the rest of Fassbinder's oeuvre, the movie actually represents something of a stylistic break for the director. Shot in stark black-and-white -- a drastic change from Fassbinder's typically gaudy color films -- Effi Briest employs novelistic flourishes such as intertitles, voiceover narration and fades to white to tell its story. It's a deliberately Brechtian piece, using mirrors, frames within the frame and stilted blocking to impart a distanced and chilly veneer. The rigorous mise-en-scene encourages the audience's critical participation, but also serves as the perfect visual expression of the society the narrative depicts. Detached as it is, Effi Briest unabashedly invites comparisons with contemporary society, implicitly asking whether much has changed. In keeping with Fassbinder's gloomy and deterministic worldview, this exacting movie offers a pessimistic answer to that question. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide

Cast

Karl Heinz Böhm - Wuellersdorf; Hark Bohm - Gieshuebler; Andorthe Braker - Mrs. Pasche; Irm Hermann - Johanna; Barbara Lass - Polish Cook; Rudolf Lenz - Rummschuettel; Eva Mattes - Hulda; Lilo Pempeit - Frau Briest; Wolfgang Schenck - Baron Geert Von Instetten; Karl Scheydt - Kruse; Andrea Schober - Annie; Hanna Schygulla - Effi Briest; Herbert Steinmetz - Herr Briest; Ursula Straetz - Roswitha; Barbara Valentin - Singer Marietta Tripelli; Peter Gauhe - Dagobert; Ulli Lommel - Maj. Crampas

Credit

Kurt Raab - Art Director, Barbara Baum - Costume Designer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Director, Thea Eymèsz - Editor, Jürgen Jürges - Cinematographer, Dietrich Lohmann - Cinematographer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Producer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Screenwriter, Camille Saint-Saëns - Featured Music, Theodor Fontane - Book Author

Similar Movies

Far From the Madding Crowd; Keetje Tippel; Der Scharlachrote Buchstabe; Tess; Tristana; Sofie; Agnes; Geschichten Aus Dem Wiener Wald

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