One of the key works of the German New Wave maestro Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982), WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? is a maddening, thought-provoking and altogether brilliant portrayal of a murderer that doesn’t announce itself as such until the final ten minutes!
…a maddening, thought-provoking and altogether brilliant portrayal of a murderer that doesn’t announce itself as such until the final ten minutes!
Fassbinder was one of the guiding lights of 1970s German cinema, alongside the equally iconic likes of Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders. Like them Fassbinder helmed many unique and oft-brilliant films, turning out an astonishing 40-plus features before his death at age 37, including classics like FOX AND HIS FRIENDS, IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS, QUERELLE and the 15-hour TV miniseries BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? (WARUM LAUFT HERR R. AMOK?; 1970) starred Kurt Raab, who worked behind the scenes on many of Fassbinder’s early features (and also scripted and starred in Ulli Lommel’s Fassbinder-produced classic THE TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES in 1973). Most of the rest of the cast was filled out by Fassbinder regulars like Hanna Schygulla, Ingrid Caven, Lilo Pempeit, Doris Mattes, Harry Baer and Peer Rabe.
Fassbinder was one of the guiding lights of 1970s German cinema, alongside the equally iconic likes of Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders.
In recent years a controversy has sprung up around this film. It was in fact co-directed by Michael Fengler (who also shared directorial duties on Fassbinder’s 1970 film THE NIKLASHAUSEN JOURNEY), although Fassbinder took full credit. Yet in a recent interview co-star Hanna Schygulla claims that Fengler actually directed the entirety of the film. Obviously I can’t verify Schygulla’s assertion, but can say that the film is wildly different from most of Fassbinder’s other works—enough so that I can’t entirely dismiss her claims.
The title character is an absurdly buttoned-down suburban architect who’s reached his breaking point. The idea that “normal” folk are all human time bombs is one that seems to be shared by movie folk the world over, but this film stands apart from most other examples of cinematic suburban psychosis (such as THE STEPFATHER and AMERICAN BEAUTY) due to the fact that its stifling middle class dystopia is entirely convincing.
Creating controlled chaos is a tall order for most filmmakers, but controlled boredom is something else entirely.
In a series of documentary-like vignettes we see Herr Raab joking with some friends, canoodling at home with his sexy wife, asking two giggling music store employees about a song whose title he doesn’t remember, walking in a forest where his young son abruptly runs off, getting reprimanded by his boss for shoddy draftsmanship, sitting through a long harangue by his son’s teacher about how the boy is inattentive in class, helping his son with his homework, giving a drunken toast to his boss that only succeeds in making everyone around him uncomfortable, and attempting to watch TV while his wife chatters inanely with a friend—but then the TV breaks down, and Raab picks up a candlestick…
There is one scene not featuring Raab, and that’s a get-together with his wife and several vapid friends during which they discuss the fact that things aren’t going well in the marriage. Of course the particulars of this problem, like so much else about this fiercely enigmatic film, are left deliberately vague.
Creating controlled chaos is a tall order for most filmmakers, but controlled boredom is something else entirely. I can think of few directors who succeeded in pulling it off, and fewer still who’d even dare. Yet that’s precisely what Fassbinder and/or Michael Fengler have accomplished here, in a largely improvised ramble that’s all about suburban mundanity and the soul-crushing burden it places on the individual. After sitting through one stultifying encounter after another in Herr R.’s incredibly dull life, I found myself wondering if a more accurate title for this film might be HOW CAN HERR R. NOT RUN AMOK?
But then again, Fassbinder and Fengler’s aims may be entirely different. One of the film’s key qualities is that it’s genuinely enigmatic, with the title posing a question that’s left entirely up to the viewer to answer. Perhaps Herr R. runs amok due to the disintegration of his marriage, or perhaps because his boss is unhappy with him—or maybe he’s just annoyed that his TV conks out.
One clue to the whys Raab’s breakdown is the way he’s relegated to the background of nearly every scene, if not edged out of the shot entirely. I’d say that outside the title the only way to be certain Raab is even the main character is through process of elimination: he’s the only individual in every scene (except one). In the few close-ups we get of Raab he’s always wearing a discontented expression, while the people around him always seem to be laughing uproariously at some private joke.
As (intentionally) dull as all this is, it has a definite tension to it. Imperceptible at first, the suspense tightens to the point that the violent climax, while seemingly sudden and unmotivated, actually feels logical and even, in an odd way, appropriate. And in the end that’s what truly makes WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? the disturbing marvel it is: the shocking but inevitable violence that erupts from the protagonist’s maddeningly uneventful existence, which of course is not terribly dissimilar to the lives most of us currently lead.
Vital Statistics
WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? (WARUM LAUFT HERR R. AMOK?)
Antiteater-Produktion
Directors/Screenwriters/Editors: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Michael Fengler
Producer: Michael Fengler
Cinematography: Dietrich Lohmann
Cast: Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Lilo Pempeit, Franz Maron, Harry Baer, Peter Moland, Hanna Schygulla, Ingrid Caven, Irm Hermann, Doris Mattes, Hannes Gromball, Vinzenz Sterr, Maria Sterr, Peer Raban