In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden

Fassbinder have have drilled the nail into the coffin of art film, forever establishing it as a genre in which only 1 person out of a thousand will actually like, enjoy, or want to study. One of those people happened to be my narrative avant-garde film proffessor. while this story of a man who switched genders...."just because" is deatheningly depressing and bloatedly long, there are redeeming qualities. This is appears to be a crystal clear message of struggle and love letter to the suffering of existence by Rainer Fassbinder, a homosexual who lived a short life and probably wrote this about an ex-boyfriend of his who committed suicide in his apartment.

The greatest moments in this film come when the storyline completely veers off center about 2/3 of the way through the film when we confront the bill gates-esque anton saitz, who has been a mythically obtuse figure up until this point. the director's wonderful gift for presenting the postmodern shows up first when elvira meets a man who mysteriously knows everything about anton s"ai"tz. "that's anton with a-i. that's the important thing" Next, we are treated to some wonderful dialogue between a suicidal janitor and Elvira which can only be described as highly surreal. Elvira reports the janitor's behavior to a hard-of-hearing secretary-like woman who may easily have been referenced in Being John Malkovich, who shrugs it off to look through a mysterious keyhole.

Apart from this, Fassbinder's film is heavy on human emotion, which is curious taken Fassbinder's philosophy that emotions are lies. surely, Elvira is not a character that the film itself is sympathetic with (this is not melodrama or 'boys don't cry'-like message sending), but one can sense the pain and confusion within her undoingdespite her being such a pathetic creature. so much so that it's difficult to even watch.

my love for the mid-section of big business is also unfortunately my source of dismay at this movie. it's violently uneven. and i have a hard time with film directors who can get away with this 'avant-garde' crap by taking simply playing around with the medium, wherein with any other form (literature, poetry, television, music) that jumping around would just seem like you didn't know what you're doing.

In the Year of 13 Moons is a wonderful movie for study, but it's not for enjoyment or amusement- as with so many films that have followed it.

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