The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

With the defeat of the Nazis looming large, "Maria" (Hanna Schygulla) marries her sweet-heart "Hermann" (Klaus Löwitch) before he is promptly sent off to the front and she loses all trace of him. With her nation now in ruins, she has no way of surviving and so has to adapt by using her wits, guile and even her body to keep alive. Fortunately, she alights on an American soldier who enables her to keep her head above water but she spurns anything more permanent as, even when told of his death, she refuses to abandon hope that "Hermann" will return. The thrust of this story continues for many a year as she begins to hone her skills of successfully combining satisfaction for others as well as herself with an increasing improvement in her circumstances. Sooner or later, though, one of these men will prove less gullible and/or lovestruck and her secret might just bring her new life tumbling down before she manages to reunite with an husband whom she's not even sure is still alive! This is a great looking drama that takes us on quite an emotionally turbulent trip into the debris of a city and a culture that saw "Maria" - like so many other hausfrau, left without any means of support as the Allies took control and struggled to deal with their own significant logistic problems. Schygulla delivers powerfully as a woman who must think on her feet to put bread on the table and a roof (or at least part of one) over her head. She's not by nature ruthless but when needs must she realises that she can rely on nobody but herself. Fassbender cleverly uses the screenplay and the bombed-out city-scape to create characters that do illicit a degree of counterintuitive sympathy. In may ways, she is a victim but will she accept that status? Her society gradually becomes akin to the phoenix and the ashes, and her determination not to be left behind is emotively captured over the two hours we spend with her and some equally ill-equipped destitute German people gradually becoming just ein bischen optimistic. It doesn't address the post-war politics of directly, but there are a few more oblique comments to add a further elements of realism to this quite poignantly written drama that marries disaster, a little humour and a great deal of fortitude.

Sep 13, 2024