4 Discs
SRP: $79.95
Out of PrintBy the age of thirty-four, German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder had directed already twenty-two feature films. In 1978, he embarked upon a project to trace the history of postwar Germany in a series of films told through the eyes of three remarkable women. Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola, and Veronika Voss—the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Trilogy—would garner him the international acclaim he had always yearned for and place his name foremost in the canon of New German Cinema.
1978
After her husband disappears in the last days of World War II, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to prosper in 1950s Germany. The first part of Fassbinder’s “postwar trilogy” is a heartbreaking character study as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past.
1982
Once-beloved Third Reich–era starlet Veronika Voss lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. She meets a sportswriter, and the two develop an unlikely relationship. Based on the true story of a World War II UFA star, Veronika Voss is wicked satire disguised as 1950s melodrama.
1981
In Fassbinder’s satiric tribute to capitalism, Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute, launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale.
“Have to still see "Lola" and "Veronika Voss", but thought "Maria Braun" was goddamn brilliant.”
