The Stationmaster's Wife
(Bolwieser)
Screening on Film
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
With Kurt Raab, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Bernhard Helfrich.
West Germany, 1977, 35mm, color, 111 min.
German with English subtitles.
With Kurt Raab, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Bernhard Helfrich.
West Germany, 1977, 35mm, color, 111 min.
German with English subtitles.
Fassbinder's The Stationmaster's Wife is a critical and brilliantly stylized look at the affairs of beautiful woman in pre-Hitler Germany of the twenties. Married to the local stationmaster, Hanni manipulates both her servile husband and a series of local lovers in order to further her philistine existence. Bitter and claustrophobic in equal parts, the film deals with the conditions of prewar petit-bourgeois life that contributed to the rise of fascism.